HQ  824  . B5 2  1921 
Badger,  Richard  G. 

The  bible  and  the  scriptural 
ground  of  divorce  forgery 

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THE  BIBLE  AND  THE 
SCRIPTURAL  GROUND  OF 
DIVORCE  FORGERY 


BY 


A  CHURCHMAN 


'Thinking  to  the  hardest  icorlc  in  the  io?rld." 

— Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 


rv  o- 


ou  c "nr . 


(Of  ART! 

— - — - — --j.’ 


BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 


;  vM  OF  rSi,¥f> 

■V  I 

OCT  6  1991 


y;  » /»  a  *  AfiCG 


Copyright,  1921,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


PREFACE 


The  Sacrament  of  Marriage  is  as  distinctly  set 
forth  in  the  New  Testament  as  that  of  the  Lord’s 
Supper  or  of  Baptism.  This  book  criticises  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  but  highly  commends  it  for 
its  attitude  on  the  subjects  of  Marriage  and 
Divorce.  We  Protestants  are  stupid,  ignorant  and 
immoral  as  to  both  of  these  subjects.  For  about 
400  years  we  have  allowed  this  “joker”  of  a  Scrip¬ 
tural  Ground  of  Divorce  to  make  nonsense  of  the 
unquestioned  words  of  Jesus  Christ  and  to  annul 
the  Sacrament  of  Marriage.  It  is  a  theological 
asininity  to  suppose  that  the  Sacrament  of  Mar¬ 
riage  which  God  established  “in  the  Beginning”  and 
which  is  so  explicitly  and  circumstantially  re¬ 
affirmed  by  Jesus  in  verses  2  to  8  of  Matthew  XIX, 
would  be  nullified  by  Himself  by  adding  a  scriptural 
ground  of  divorce  in  verse  9,  for  each  one  of  these 
things  wholly  and  entirely  denies  the  truth  of  the 
other  and  they  cannot  stand  together  in  the  same 
Bible.  One  or  the  other  must  go,  and  the  proof  of 
their  hostility  to  each  other  is,  that  unfortunately 
the  Sacrament  of  Marriage  is  the  one  that  is  gone. 
Protestantism  denies  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage, 

3 


4 


Preface 


and  as  a  consequence,  marriage  among  Protestants 
generally  is  treated  lightly  and  as  a  joke,  instead 
of  being  an  actual  religion  in  itself  as  God  estab¬ 
lished  it  “in  the  Beginning.”  Protestants  have  lost 
not  only  the  meaning  of  this  Sacrament,  but  the 
actual  knowledge  of  its  very  existence. 

Because  a  forged  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce  is 
found  in  a  single  verse  of  a  single  book  of  the  New 
Testament,  Protestant  clergymen,  relying  upon 
what  they  suppose  to  be  an  infallible  Bible,  claim 
divorce  to  be  a  Divine  institution,  and  they  officially 
uphold  it  as  such  while  privately  they  condemn  it  as 
immoral ;  which  in  itself  is  a  proof  of  the  corruption 
of  public  morals,  by  divorce.  While  the  Spirit  of 
the  book  in  its  true  interpretation  is  Divine,  they 
should  know  that  some  of  its  text  could  not  possibly 
be  so,  for  there  are  more  than  1,400  manuscripts  of 
the  New  Testament  none  of  which  are  the  originals, 
and  copyists,  through  accident,  mistake  or  design 
could  make  such  changes  as  they  pleased,  and 
“Modern  Criticism  reckons  no  less  than  180,000 
variations  in  the  existing  manuscripts.”  All  things 
considered,  King  James’  version,  in  its  day,  was  the 
best  selection ;  yet  scholars  have  detected  more  than 
15,000  errors  in  its  text  and  interpolations.  It  is 
nonsense  to  talk  about  the  infallibility  of  Scripture 
except  in  a  general  way,  and  that  only  in  its  spirit. 

Plow  can  Protestantism  be  relieved  from  the 
dilemma  of  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage  which  is 


Preface  5 

tindoubtedly  divine,  and  a  Scriptural  Ground  of 
Divorce,  which,  according  to  the  Protestant  idea  of 
infallibility  is  also  necessarily  Divine  when  both  are 
antagonistic  and  irreconcilable;  the  authority  for 
both  of  them  profanely  attributed  to  Jesus,  and  one 
of  them  a  rank  fraud? 

There  is  but  one  answer,  and  it  is  an  easy  one 
when  a  searchlight  is  brought  to  bear  on  Matthew 

XIX-9. 

The  modest  merit  claimed  for  the  present  book 
is  that  it  treats  of  a  subject  new  to  Protestantism 
and  enters  a  field  that  is  entirely  new  and  unex¬ 
plored;  and  brings  into  light  two  existing  facts 
which  will  inevitably  destroy  divorce.  The  first  is 
that  the  Revisors  of  the  New  Testament,  on  the 
margin  of  verse  9,  Matt.  XIX,  incidentally  dis¬ 
closed  the  fact  that  this  verse  had  been  tampered 
with ;  and  that  there  are  other  ancient  versions  of 
the  Book  of  Matthew  which  make  verse  9  to  read 
exactly  like  Matthew  V-3£ ;  and  as  the  two  pas¬ 
sages  are  entirely  different  in  text,  subject  and 
meaning,  one  of  them  is  necessarily  a  forgery  for  the 
motive  is  involved.  The  second  fact  is  that  Matthew 
V-32  contains  no  scriptural  ground  of  divorce  as 
Matthew  XIX-9  is  supposed  to  do.  On  the  con¬ 
trary  this  one  short  passage,  Matthew  V-32,  con¬ 
tains  a  repudiation  of  the  Mosaic  law  of  Deuter¬ 
onomy  XXIV ;  also  a  humane  plea  for  an  innocent 
woman;  also  a  statement  that  divorce  causeth  her 


6 


Preface 


to  commit  adultery — not  that  adultery  will  cause  or 
justify  divorce,  even  of  a  guilty  woman;  and  this 
shifts  the  forgery  to  Matthew  XIX-9. 

No  commentator  has  ever  thus  explained  the 
meaning  of  Matthew  V-32,  which  is  genuine  scrip¬ 
ture,  and  there  is  no  Protestant  literature  that  has 
ever  raised  any  question  of  the  forgery  resulting 
from  the  facts  stated  by  the  Revisors  of  the  New 
Testament ;  or  as  to  the  interpretation  now  insisted 
upon  as  the  only  possible  one  to  make  the  scripture 
passage  of  Matthew  V-32  intelligible. 

Chapters  V  and  VI  deal  directly  with  both  of 
these  passages,  and  show  that  the  text  of  a  Scrip¬ 
tural  Ground  of  Divorce  in  Matthew  XIX-9,  is 
fraudulent. 

Modem  Pharisaism  would  say  that  this  disclosure 
is  an  attack  upon  the  Bible.  But  on  the  contrary 
the  proof  that  the  scriptural  ground  of  divorce  is 
a  forgery  is  a  grand  defense  of  the  Bible,  for 
divorce  under  all  circumstances  and  for  every  cause 
is  an  abominable  obscenity,  a  crime  against  the  Sac¬ 
rament  of  Marriage,  and  not  to  be  so  much  as  named 
among  Christians  who  are  supposed  to  follow  the 
express  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  writer  well 
remembers  before  the  Civil  War  when  any  objection 
to  the  immorality  of 
an  attack  upon  the  Bible  and  a  Divine  institution. 
The  Bible  has  been  disinfected  of  Slavery,  and  when 
Protestants  cease  to  give  aid  and  shelter  to  Divorce 


Slavery  was  also  claimed  to  be 


Preface  7 

as  a  Divine  institution,  there  will  be  another  “dis¬ 
infection”  and  both  of  the  so-called  “Divine  institu¬ 
tions”  will  occupy  the  same  limbo.  When  Jesus 
denounced  the  law  of  Moses,  Deut.  XXIV,  as  not 
being  the  law  of  God,  and  to  that  extent  purified  the 
Old  Testament,  why  should  not  Protestants  con¬ 
tinue  His  work  and  purify  the  New  Testament  by 
recognizing  Matthew  XXX-9,  as  an  attempt 
through  a  forgery  to  reinstate  that  which  He 
expressly  condemned? 

Protestantism  should  address  itself  to  the  accom¬ 
plishment  of  three  things,  to  wit : — 

First:  To  secure  the  abolition  of  all  divorce  on 
every  ground,  in  every  State  of  the  Union  (South 
Carolina  has  already  effected  it). 

Second:  To  redeem  the  Bible  from  the  falsehood 
that  Jesus  Christ  and  the  New  Testament  anywhere 
truly  sanction  divorce  for  adultery. 

Third:  To  redeem  marriage  from  its  present 

degraded  and  debauched  state  by  reinstating  in 
Protestantism,  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I  Preliminary . 

PAGE 

.  .  13 

II 

The  Bible . 

.  .  53 

III 

The  Book  of  Mark  .... 

.  .  80 

IV 

The  Book  of  Luke  .... 

.  .  82 

V 

Matthew  V,  31-32  .... 

.  .  83 

VI 

Matthew  XIX-9 . 

.  .  91 

VII 

The  Sacrament  of  Marriage  . 

.  .  109 

VIII 

Some  Practical  Suggestions 

,  .  122 

THE  BIBLE  AND  THE 
SCRIPTURAL  GROUND  OF 
DIVORCE  FORGERY 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE 
SCRIPTURAL  GROUND  OF 
DIVORCE  FORGERY 


CHAPTER  I 

PRELIMINARY 

The  subject  of  Divorce  is  so  intimately  related 
to  Protestantism,  the  Bible,  the  Clergy,  public  and 
private  morality  and  sanity  that  it  must  necessarily 
be  treated  argumentatively,  discursively,  and  with 
a  certain  freedom.  Chapters  five  and  six  bear 
directly  on  the  so-called  Scriptural  ground  of 
divorce,  but  to  prepare  the  way  for  an  attack  upon 
this  iniquity  which  has  fraudulently  intrenched  itself 
behind  supposed  Scripture,  it  is  necessary  to  bom¬ 
bard  its  outlying  defences  before  coming  to  the 
death  grapple  of  a  bayonet  charge.  Every  word  of 
these  preliminary  statements  and  preliminary  chap¬ 
ters  is  necessary ;  and  however  apparently  foreign 
to  the  subject,  has  a  direct  bearing  on  the  matter 
of  divorce,  and  upon  that  subject  alone  as  its  final 
objective. 


13 


14  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  t Divorce  Forgery 

Some  one  has  remarked:  “With  what  little  wis¬ 
dom  the  world  is  governed,”  but  it  does  not  need  a 
genius  to  announce  a  fact  so  trite  and  obvious  to 
any  one  who  thinks.  Puck  puts  it  more  tersely — 
“What  fools  these  mortals  be.”  Somebody  once  said 
to  Mr.  Gladstone  in  regard  to  something  that  was 
at  that  time  upon  the  anvil  in  England:  “What  will 
the  people  think  of  this?”  and  he  is  reported  to 
have  answered: — “The  people!  the  people  do  not 
think.”  He  only  stated  a  well  known  fact,  and  he 
might  have  added  that  people  are  governed  almost 
entirely  by  their  feelings  and  emotions  and  preju¬ 
dices  instead  of  their  brains;  by  second  hand  opin¬ 
ions  and  by  subserviency  to  supposed  authority. 

And  Mr.  Gladstone  was  himself  a  striking  illus¬ 
tration  of  his  own  statement.  At  the  head  of  the 
English  government ;  supposed  to  be  a  Statesman  of 
very  high  rank,  a  scholar  and  Bible  student,  he 
lacked  the  intellectuality  of  moral  sanity,  and  apol¬ 
ogized  for  and  defended  human  slavery  as  a  Divine 
institution.  His  rank  as  a  thinker  may  also  be 
judged  by  a  statement  he  made  in  regard  to  the 
authority  of  the  Bible  in  defense  of  slavery:  that 
“What  the  Bible  regulates  it  approves  of.”  But  he 
forgot  that  the  Bible  regulates  murder  when  Moses 
provided  six  cities  of  refuge,  in  order  to  teach  and 
evolutionize  those  uncivilized  Israelites,  so  that  the 
lex  talionisy  the  law  of  reprisal,  an  eye  for  an  eye, 
and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  should  no  longer  prevail  if 


Preliminary  15 

the  homicide  should  succeed  in  gaining  a  city  of 
refuge  and  secure  a  trial  for  his  life.  Notwith¬ 
standing  the  regulation  of  murder  the  Bible  does 
not  approve  of  murder.  It  may  also  be  said  inci¬ 
dentally,  that  he  put  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
into  Confederate  bonds.  I  use  Mr.  Gladstone  as  a 
conspicuous  example  of  the  “people”  of  whom  he 
spoke,  who  never  think,  who  accept  all  moral  and 
spiritual  ideas  at  second  hand ;  as  a  type  of  people, 
who,  whether  politicians  or  clergymen  never  went 
to  the  foundation  of  a  moral  question  for  them¬ 
selves  in  their  lives ;  who  through  all  history  have 
buttressed  every  human  infamy  of  war,  despotism, 
cruelty,  race  hatred,  polygamy,  slavery  and  divorce, 
and  pointed  to  the  Bible  as  their  authority.  It  is 
this  highly  influential  class  of  men,  the  scribes, 
pharisees  and  hypocrites  of  our  day  and  time,  the 
Doctors  of  Divinity,  the  Priests  and  the  Bishops 
from  Caiaphas  clear  down  the  line,  who  have  per¬ 
verted  and  distorted  and  added  to  and  subtracted 
from  the  simple  truths  of  the  Bible,  both  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament,  and  have  made  theology 
and  institutional  religion  ridiculous  when  it  is  not 
more  often  a  slander  both  against  God  and  man. 
This  is  true  both  of  Romanists  and  Protestants, 
The  Bible,  the  real  Bible  has  been  slandered,  abused 
and  distorted  by  both  wings  of  Christendom  and  has 
been  made  to  bear  a  burden  of  undeserved  infamy. 
Yet,  it  is  an  inexhaustable  mine  of  truth ;  and  Chris- 


16  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

tianity,  in  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospels,  survives 
in  spite  of  all  the  perversions  and  follies  of  both 
men  and  churches. 

The  men  of  about  sixty  years  ago  who  believed 
in  human  slavery,  which  has  been  said  to  be  the 
sum  of  all  villianies,  and  claimed  to  be  Christians, 
also  claimed  to  be  sane ;  but  were  they  really, 
morally  or  intellectually  sane?  Certainly  not.  Yet 
multitudes  of  men  in  Northern  counting  houses  and 
Churches  upheld  and  defended  slavery  upon  the 
authority  of  the  Bible,  and  clergymen  wrote  books 
and  preached  in  its  defense.  They  did  not  talk  of 
truth  and  morality  which  is  more  sacred  than  any 
book,  but  they  made  the  Bible  serve  the  purpose  of 
a  two  foot  rule,  and  thus  degraded  it  for  base  ends. 
The  surrender  of  the  Confederate  Army  at  Appo¬ 
mattox  on  April  9,  1865  had  the  singular  and  mag¬ 
ical  effect  of  restoring  millions  of  people  both  in  the 
North  and  South  to  moral  and  intellectual  sanity 
in  a  single  day.  The  man  who  believes  in  the 
divinity  of  the  institution  of  human  slavery  to-day, 
— if  there  is  such  a  man — is  a  harmless  lunatic,  and 
everybody  would  very  much  pity  him  as  a  moral 
freak.  And  so  will  the  man  be  regarded  in  years 
presently  to  come  who  will  then  still  avow  his  belief 
in  divorce,  on  any  ground,  as  a  divine  institution, 
or  as  having  any  moral  ground  for  its  support,  or 
any  true  scriptural  authority :  for  there  is  no 
authority  for  divorce  of  any  kind,  either  in  morals 


17 


Preliminary 

or  in  the  scriptures.  It  is  fraudulent  on  either 
ground;  and  the  perversion  of  scripture  will  pres¬ 
ently  be  made  patent.  There  is  no  exception  to  or 
compromise  with  divorce,  or  any  half  way  measure 
in  regard  to  it.  Instead  of  being  a  Divine  institu¬ 
tion,  it  is  wholly  and  always  vicious.  If  the  New 
Testament  contained  any  veritable  scripture  au¬ 
thorizing  divorce  on  any  ground  whatever,  then  all 
the  worse  for  the  Bible.  But  the  Bible  should  be 
relieved  from  any  such  reproach.  Jesus  denounced 
the  law  of  Moses  with  respect  to  divorce,  as  not 
being  the  law  of  God,  and  every  word  He  ever  spake 
on  the  subject  condemns  all  divorce  without  any 
qualification  or  exception. 

The  clergyman  who  defends  a  scriptural  ground 
of  divorce,  makes  it  a  Divine  institution.  Such  a 
man  may  not  be  regarded  at  present  as  a  subject 
for  a  commission  de  hmatico  inquirendo ,  but  he  is 
really  as  mad  as  a  hatter.  He  is  precisely  as  mad 
as  the  man  who  used  to  defend  slavery  as  a  Divine 
institution.  I  commend  to  him  the  following  pas¬ 
sage,  full  of  wit  and  wisdom,  taken  from  The  Auto¬ 
crat  of  the  Breakfast  Table. 

Insanity  is  often  the  logic  of  an  accurate  mind 
overtasked.  Good  mental  machinery  ought  not  to 
break  its  own  wheels  and  levers,  if  anything  is  thrown 
among  them  suddenly  which  tends  to  stop  them  or 
reverse  their  motion.  A  weak  mind  does  not  accu¬ 
mulate  force  enough  to  hurt  itself ;  stupidity  often 


18  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

saves  a  man  from  going  mad.  We  frequently  see 
persons  in  insane  hospitals,  sent  there  in  consequence 
of  what  was  called  religious  mental  disturbances.  I 
confess  that  I  think  better  of  them  than  of  many  who 
hold  the  same  notions  and  keep  their  wits  and  appear 
to  enjoy  life  very  well  outside  of  the  asylum.  Any 
decent  person  ought  to  go  mad  if  he  holds  such  or 
such  opinions.  It  is  very  much  to  his  discredit,  in 
every  point  of  view,  if  he  does  not.  What  is  the  use 
of  my  saying  what  some  of  these  opinions  are?  Per¬ 
haps  more  than  one  of  you  hold  such  as  I  should 
think  ought  to  send  you  straight  over  to  Somerville, 
if  you  have  any  logic  in  your  heads,  or  any  human 
feeling  in  your  heart.  Anything  that  is  brutal, 
cruel,  heathenish,  that  makes  life  hopeless  for  the 
most  of  mankind,  and  perhaps  for  entire  races,  any¬ 
thing  that  assumes  the  necessity  of  the  extermina¬ 
tion  of  instincts  which  were  given  to  be  regulated, 
no  matter  by  what  name  you  call  it,  no  matter 
whether  a  fakir  or  a  monk  or  a  Doctor  of  Divinity 
believes  it, — if  received,  ought  to  produce  insanity  in 
every  well-regulated  mind.  That  condition  becomes 
a  normal  one  under  the  circumstances.  I  am  very 
much  ashamed  of  some  people  for  retaining  their 
reason,  when  they  know  perfectly  well  that  if  they 
were  not  the  most  stupid  or  the  most  selfish  of  human 
beings,  they  would  become  non-compotes  at  once. 

We  cannot  say  how  many  people  and  all  the 
subjects  that  the  Autocrat  had  in  his  mind  at  the 
time  of  writing  the  above  passage,  but  we  are  certain 
that  his  statement  embraced  almost  every  theolo¬ 
gian  that  ever  wrote  a  book.  John  Calvin,  John 


Preliminary  19 

Knox,  Jonathan  Edwards  every  one  of  the  West¬ 
minster  Divines,  and  even  St.  Paul  himself,  have 
had  a  marvelous  escape  from  deserved  incarceration 
in  the  insane  wards  of  an  asylum,  and  only  owed 
their  immunity  to  the  fact  that  there  was  a  dearth 
of  such  humane  institutions  in  their  day,  and  also 
to  the  fact  that  when  everybody  was  insane  there 
was  no  need  of  insane  asylums.  That  whole  peoples 
and  nations,  and  every  individual  man  among1  them 
can  go  insane  and  turn  away  from  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  Christ  to  the  worship  of  Thor  or  Woden  is 
proven  by  the  recent  example  of  Germany.  In  the 
Sixteenth  century  Germany,  naturally,  was  obsessed 
to  a  greater  degree  than  other  lands  with  the  idea 
of  witchcraft,  and  with  her  instinct  for  cruelty,  she 
tortured  and  burned  one  hundred  thousand  people, 
as  shown  by  the  records  of  the  Courts  of  that  coun¬ 
try,  and  upon  the  authority  of  Andrew  D.  White, 
our  Ambassador  to  Germany.  One  remarkable  fea¬ 
ture  of  all  this  horror  was,  that  under  torture  the 
victims  invariably  confessed  that  they  were  witches, 
but  when  chained  to  the  stake  and  in  articulo  mortis 
they  invariably  recanted  and  denied  it.  Now  we 
are  sane  enough  to  say  that  there  never  was  such 
a  thing  as  a  witch,  not  even  a  “witch  of  Endor,” 
and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  law  of  Moses  says 
“Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live.”  And  as  to 
demoniacal  possession,  it  is  cjuite  certain  there  never 
was  such  a  thing,  nor  such  a  thing  as  a  devil,  except 


20  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

as  he  might  figure  in  the  Book  of  Job  as  a  necessary 
literary  invention  and  figure  of  speech.  I  quite 
believe  that  Jesus  cast  out  devils,  but  I  could  never 
think  he  believed  in  them,  although  that  was  the 
common  belief  of  His  time.  A  celebrated  London 
physician  once  cast  a  frog  out  of  a  woman’s  stomach 
which  was  never  there.  If  Jesus  had  talked  sanity 
and  Science  to  those  people,  he  would  have  shocked 
them,  and  they  would  have  mobbed  Him  on  the  spot. 

Right  thinking  is,  in  its  best  sense,  only  sanity. 
Wrong  thinking  is  insanity  to  a  greater  or  lesser 
degree,  and  the  man  who  thinks  wrongly  rarely 
suspects  that  he  is  insane.  A  thief  is  no  more  than 
a  fool,  who  steals  from  himself,  and  a  Bank  Cashier 
who  abuses  his  trust  is  always  insane,  although  he 
may  not  fully  realize  it  until  he  is  behind  prison 
bars  and  is  compelled  to  think.  Hatred,  jealousy, 
bitterness,  rage  and  many  other  things  are  beyond 
the  borderland  of  sanity.  Our  copy  book  truly 
said  “Anger  is  a  short  madness.” 

Furthermore,  and  as  a  corollary  to  this  apparent 
but  not  real  digression: — To  think  rightly  is  to  act 
rightly.  To  think  correctly  will  inevitably  produce 
correct  action.  This  statement  is  an  absolute  one 
without  possible  qualification.  It  may  be  objected 
that  a  man  may  think  correctly  but  his  will  to  act 
mav  be  impaired,  as  in  the  case  of  the  drunkard. 
The  answer  is  that  the  will  is  a  mere  agent  and  is 
subordinate  to  the  intellect.  The  will  is  a  mere 


Preliminary  21 

animal  function  as  compared  to  intellect,  which  in 
turn  is  the  creature  of  the  Spirit.  When  a  man 
yields  to  temptation,  both  of  these  latter  are  in 
abeyance,  and  he  either  does  not  think  at  all,  or 
does  not  think  correctly.  If  the  drunkard  would 
think  correctly,  he  would  resist  temptation  as  easily 
as  a  man  who  never  drank,  and  he  would  suffer  no 
lapse  from  sanity. 

To  construct  a  plan  of  salvation,  to  save  souls, 
to  use  the  familiar  phraseology  of  people  who  are 
content  with  phrases  rather  than  with  ideas,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  deform  and  degrade  humanity  on 
the  one  hand,  nor  to  make  God  a  monster  of  wicked¬ 
ness,  with  whom  a  decent  man  could  have  no  asso¬ 
ciation,  upon  the  other.  Neither  is  it  necessary  to 
set  up  a  claim  for  an  infallible  and  inerrant  Bible, 
for  the  Bible  is  so  human  and  Divine  that  it  could 
not  be  infallible,  nor  is  there  any  reason  why  it 
should  be  so.  Nor  is  there  an  infallible  church,  for 
it  too,  is  both  human  and  Divine.  Any  church  that 
is  avid  of  the  forms  of  worldly  power  and  domina¬ 
tion,  even  in  theory,  does  not  come  within  the  pur¬ 
view  of  the  statement, — “My  Kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world;”  and  thus  the  perversion  of  its  real  and  true 
foundation  is  disposed  of  by  Jesus  Christ  in  one 
short  sentence.  Such  perversions  of  Scripture  in¬ 
variably  degrade  truth  from  its  spiritual  to  the 
material  plane,  and  whether  it  is  a  church  or  an 
institution  of  religion,  always  corrupt  and  secular- 


22  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

ize  it.  As  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  every 
perversion  of  anything  that  is  spiritual  will  always 
end  by  materializing  it,  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage, 
which  Jesus  says  “existed  from  the  beginning,” — 
before  there  were  any  Bibles, — has  been  destroyed 
so  far  as  Protestantism  is  concerned,  by  a  single 
passage  of  forged  words  allowing  divorce,  and  in 
order  to  maintain  the  superstition  of  an  infallible 
Bible  Protestantism  denies  the  sacrament  of  Mar¬ 
riage,  and  has  thrown  it  overboard,  and  marriage 
has  been  wholly  secularized  in  the  Protestant  wing 
of  Christianity,  as  one  or  the  other,  the  sacrament 
of  marriage  or  divorce,  must  give  way,  being  incon¬ 
sistent  with  each  other.  Real  Christianity  is  always 
sane,  and  the  true  test  of  scripture  truth  is  sanity. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  the  sanity  of  certain 
theological  beliefs,  we  may  venture  to  say  that  no 
man  really  believes  a  religious  doctrine,  whatever 
he  may  profess  in  regard  to  it,  until  he  has  gone 
to  the  foundation  facts  and  thereby  made  the  belief 
his  own,  instead  of  adopting  it  second  hand.  Certain 
people  profess  to  believe  in  the  Doctrine  of  Election, 
for  instance.  They  also  believe  they  are  of  the 
elect,  and  immediately  proceed  to  damn  the  great 
majority  of  mankind  to  all  kinds  of  unpleasant 
destruction  and  everlastingly.  Their  particular 
method  seems  to  be  in  electing  themselves  simply  by 
believing  in  a  belief,  which  in  itself  is  an  evidence 
of  irrationality.  But  upon  what  facts  does  any- 


Preliminary  23 

body  base  the  doctrine  of  election,  either  for  himself 
or  others?  He  may  point  to  the  Presbyterian  Con¬ 
fession  of  Faith  of  the  Westminster  Divines,  Chap¬ 
ter  third,  on  the  Sovereignty  of  God.  The  reply 
is,  that  this  is  not  sufficient,  we  want  the  facts.  He 
would  reply  that  it  is  based  on  the  9th  chapter  of 
Romans.  We  would  then  ask,  where  did  Paul  get 
his  facts,  and  what  were  his  facts?  Did  not  Paul 
say,  he  would  answer,  that  God  said,  “Jacob  have 
I  loved,  and  Esau  have  I  hated?”  Yes,  Paul  bor¬ 
rowed  that  oriental  expression  from  Malachi,  and 
Malachi  meant  one  thing,  and  Paul  distorts  his 
meaning  for  another  thing,  a  clear  perversion.  The 
only  fact  that  Paul  had  to  stand  upon  was  that  God 
had  chosen  the  Jewish  people  for  certain  work  in 
the  world,  and  that  he  was  a  Jew.  These  undeniable 
facts,  however,  brought  him  not  one  step  nearer  to 
the  doctrine  of  election,  for  according  to  Christian 
theology  few  Jews  were  to  be  “saved.”  Election  is 
left  to  the  caprice  of  the  Almighty.  If  God  wanted 
to  create  the  great  majority  of  the  human  race,  for 
the  purpose  of  damning  them  to  everlasting  punish¬ 
ment,  the  people  who  believe  in  election  think  that 
He  has  the  right  to  do  so,  (providing  always  that 
they  are  of  the  elect).  In  admitting  these  facts, 
they  either  limit,  or  do  away  altogether,  with  the 
Atonement  of  Jesus  Christ;  and  the  church  that  is 
called  the  “Bride  of  Jesus  Christ”  is  thus  made  to 
slander  God  by  making  Him  an  immoral  and  fool- 


24t  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

ishly  capricious  monster.  What  claim  have  theo¬ 
logians  who  profess  such  ideas,  to  any  moral  or 
intellectual  sanity,  and  yet  they  still  run  at  large. 
They  may  not  be  dangerous,  but  such  people  are  by 
no  means  harmless. 

Now  what  is  the  truth  of  the  case?  There  is 
such  a  thing  in  the  spiritual,  moral  and  natural 
world  as  election,  which  is  selection.  God  chooses 
the  Egyptians  for  one  thing,  the  Israelites  for  an¬ 
other,  the  Greeks  for  another,  the  Romans  and  the 
English  for  another.  He  chooses  individuals  from 
all  these  Nations  for  their  suitability  for  certain 
purposes,  often  without  regard  to  moral  character, 
to  do  certain  work  in  the  world.  They  are  all 
elected,  and  help  to  elect  themselves.  He  also  selects 
certain  breeds  of  men,  also  certain  breeds  of  ani¬ 
mals,  of  plants  and  flowers,  grass  and  fruits  and 
grains,  for  their  individual  superiority.  He  selected 
and  elected  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  also  his  conqueror, 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  a  Washington,  a  Lincoln 
and  John  Wilkes  Booth.  He  elected  Jacob  to  be 
the  progenitor  of  a  wonderful  race  of  people,  in 
spite  of  his  defective  moral  character,  because  he 
had  certain  potencies  of  character  which  Esau  did 
not  possess,  and  rejected  the  latter  as  head  of  the 
Nation  although  his  moral  character  was  infinitely 
superior  to  Jacob’s, — following  the  law  of  selection 
or  election.  And  now,  in  the  sacred  name  of  the 
God  of  Sanity,  what  has  all  this,  or  any  part  of  it 


Preliminary  25 

to  do  with  individual  salvation?  To  say  that  God 
out  of  His  mere  good  pleasure,  before  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  the  world,  chose  a  few,  certainly  you  and 
me,  of  course,  unto  eternal  life,  not  for  any  merit 
of  our  own,  and  doomed  the  great  majority  of 
mankind  for  His  mere  good  pleasure  unto  everlast¬ 
ing  torments  through  all  eternity,  is  simply  blas¬ 
phemous  nonsense,  no  matter  where  it  is  found,  and 
there  are  many  people,  not  so  many  as  formerly 
however,  who  are  possessed  with  such  hallucinations. 
No  man  ever  really  believed  such  stuff  although  he 
often  thought  he  did.  Those  worthy  men,  the  West¬ 
minster  Divines,  in  spite  of  what  they  said,  could 
never  have  believed  such  things  about  God,  or  have 
made  Him  such  a  monster;  for  had  they  done  so, 
they  would  never  have  gone  home  after  their  four 
years  of  lucubration  and  become  good  citizens  and 
reconciled  themselves  to  such  a  crazy  universe;  and 
if  they,  by  any  lapse  or  chance  had  ever  begotten 
any  more  children,  they  would  have  become  appalled 
by  such  an  act  and  immediately  committed  suicide, 
in  view  of  such  an  irreparable  crime.  It  is  not  on 
record  that  any  of  them  ever  did  so,  and  we  are 
forced  to  conclude  that  they  never  really  believed 
in  their  fearfully  and  wonderfully  constructed  the¬ 
ology,  and  were  only  talking  through  their  hats. 
If  we  are  obliged  to  take  our  choice  between  tragedy 
and  comedy,  Christian  charity  requires  us  to  adopt 
the  latter. 


26  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

Except  for  the  great  enlightenment  of  the  last 
about  sixty  years,  how  little  has  theology  helped  us 
to  have  any  decent  conception  of  God?  Science 
has  been  the  handmaid  of  religion,  though  a  veri¬ 
table  Cinderella.  But  things  have  changed  and  are 
changing.  The  universe  is  becoming  enlarged.  As 
in  England  we  build  Christian  temples  on  Homan 
and  pagan  foundations,  Pantheism,  often  misrep¬ 
resented,  is  now  the  Divine  Immanence,  and  the 
Life  of  God  palpitates  in  every  atom  and  in  all  life 
of  the  universe,  and  all  is  equally  dear  to  Him. 
God  ceases  to  be  a  God;  He  is  the  Father;  and  the 
Father  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ;  and 
His  Atonement  is  not  for  the  few  but  for  every  soul 
that  ever  existed.  It  could  not  be  otherwise  that 
every  soul  will  in  the  process  of  the  ages,  come  into 
divine  consciousness  of  eternal  life  in  God  the 
Father. 

At  this  point  it  may  be  asked,  “What  has  all  this 
apparently  irrelevant  discursiveness  to  do  with 
divorce?”  The  answer  is  that  it  has  everything  to 
do  with  it.  Ignorance,  superstition,  perverted 
scripture,  both  in  its  text  and  in  its  interpretation, 
and  the  claim  of  an  infallible  Bible  which  is  the 
slogan  of  Protestantism  to  beat  an  infallible  church, 
and  divorce,  are  all  closely  inter-related,  and  divorce 
cannot  be  discussed  intelligently  without  covering 
all  this  ground.  There  is  a  method  in  this  madness, 
and  as  divorce  skulks  behind  the  Scriptures  and  an 


Preliminary 


27 


infallible  Bible  we  intend  to  drive  it  into  the  open  by 
levelling  its  defenses.  If  men  who  were  justly 
reputed  the  greatest  and  wisest  of  their  time  can 
blunder  so  egregiously  as  to  their  interpretation 
of  scripture,  must  we  forever  regard  their  opinions 
as  sacred,  and  must  we  accept  their  theology  and 
the  fact  of  the  infallibility  of  their  teachings,  as 
well  as  the  text  of  the  Bible,  simply  because  they 
chose  to  say  it  is  true? 

If  the  statistics  of  divorce  are  a  gauge  of  the 
morals  of  a  nation,  the  people  of  the  United  States 
are  showing  a  rapidly  increasing  deterioration  in 
those  private  and  domestic  virtues  which  center  in 
and  have  their  safeguard  in  the  home.  The  tide  of 
divorce  has  been  rising  for  the  past  thirty  years, 
becoming  heavier  with  each  year  and  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  growth  of  population.  The  last 
Federal  statistics  were  for  1916,  and  showed  that 
something  over  ten  per  cent  of  all  marriages  in  the 
United  States  ended  in  divorce,  double  that  of  the 
year  1890;  and  organized  Christianity  is  entirely 
apathetic  on  the  subject.  If  the  Protestant  church 
is  indifferent,  then,  sooner  or  later  the  State  will 
be  compelled  to  interfere  and  abolish  it,  and  the 
lawyers  and  judges  and  politicians  will  enter  into 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  before  the  clergy  and  the 
Doctors  of  Divinity.  Marriage  and  divorce  are 
essentially  and  primarily  the  concern  of  the  church 
and  of  religion,  but  divorce  now  threatens  the  wel- 


28  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

fare  of  the  State.  The  Nation  will  sooner  or  later, 
follow  the  example  of  South  Carolina,  a  State  which 
long  ago  happily  prohibited  divorce  on  every 
ground  including  the  so-called  scriptural  ground  of 
adultery.  After  years  of  experience  after  adopting 
this  Christian  and  sensible  course,  she  is  so  well 
satisfied,  that  she  will  never  return  to  it  as  a  dog 
to  its  vomit,  or  as  a  sow  to  her  wallowing  in  the 
mire. 

The  real  difficulty  in  abolishing  divorce  will  be 
found  not  with  the  politicians,  but  with  the  clergy 
which  is  always  reactionary  in  every  great  move¬ 
ment  for  the  betterment  of  the  world  until  that 
cause  or  movement  is  assured  of  success.  This  is  a 
grave  charge  to  make  against  a  body  of  individually 
worthy  and  devoted  men,  which  is  supposed  to  have 
and  does  have  the  welfare  of  Christianity  and  society 
at  heart,  but  it  is  abundantly  established  by  his¬ 
torical  fact.  In  the  great  events  in  history  which 
mark  distinct  advancement  of  civilization,  I  can 
recall  nothing  since  the  Reformation  of  the  Six¬ 
teenth  Century  which  was  not  more  to  the  credit 
of  statesmen  and  politicians  than  to  the  clergy. 
Until  the  last  fifty  years  they  have  been  the  bitter 
foes  of  science.  Yet  science  has  done  more  for 
religion,  in  enlarging  our  conception  of  the  true 
God  and  in  demonstrating  the  One-ness  and  har¬ 
mony  of  the  universe,  and  dispelling  superstition, 
than  all  the  clergy  and  the  church  have  done  since 


Preliminary  29 

the  Christian  Era.  No  good  government  can  exist 
or  be  perpetuated  where  there  is  a  union  between 
church  and  state,  nor  can  it  exist  without  a  happy 
blend  between  Autocracy  and  Democracy — the  ex¬ 
tremes  of  either  being  as  dangerous  as  a  wild  beast. 
Jesus  gave  us  the  happy  mesne  between  these  two 
opposite  principles  when  He  said — “Render  unto 
Cassar  the  things  that  are  Caesar’s  and  unto  God 
the  things  that  are  God’s.”  Obey  the  civil  author¬ 
ities,  but  first  obey  God;  and  this  teaching  was  in 
striking  opposition  to  those  of  Peter  and  Paul,  who 
knew  no  better  in  their  day  and  who  inculcated  a 
positive  and  unqualified  Autocracy.  Pauline  theol¬ 
ogy  would  have  it  that  God  is  an  autocrat  who  has 
the  right  to  do  wrong.  The  clergy  generally  in 
all  matters  of  governmental  and  moral  reform,  both 
by  instinct  and  precedent,  have  been  more  disposed 
to  follow  Paul  than  Jesus.  As  a  mere  illustration 
of  the  general  tendency  of  the  clergy  to  support 
reactionary  principles  in  government,  and  the  belief 
in  an  infallible  Bible  which  requires  obedience  to 
tyrants  and  to  despotism,  they  canonized  Charles 
the  First ;  and  up  until  the  lifetime  of  persons  now 
living,  this  royal  blackguard  and  tyrant  was  glori¬ 
fied  as  “The  Blessed  King  Charles  the  Martyr,” 
and  a  day  was  set  apart  in  the  English  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  for  this  purpose,  and  they  wor¬ 
shipped  a  God  who  was  supposed  to  endorse  King 
Charles  and  all  his  works  because  he  was  a  King. 


30  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  \ Divorce  Forgery 

At  the  time  of  our  Civil  War  the  clergy  of  the 
United  States  as  a  rule,  were  active  or  passive 
sympathizers  of  the  South,  and  until  the  very  close 
of  the  war  for  the  Union  and  its  success  became 
assured.  Church  newspapers  in  the  North  defended 
slavery  as  a  Divine  institution  on  the  authority  of 
the  Scriptures  and  clergymen  wrote  books  to  prove 
it.  Many  of  them  were  “Neutral  in  opinion.”  Many 
had  nothing  to  say  and  many  no  doubt  who  had  no 
particular  leaning  towards  slavery,  kept  silence 
from  timidity  and  cowardice.  There  were  excep¬ 
tions,  but  they  were  few.  The  only  prominent  ones 
I  can  now  recall  were  Henry  Ward  Beecher  on  the 
Atlantic  Coast,  and  'Thomas  Starr  King  in  Cali¬ 
fornia.  Beecher  went  to  England  at  a  critical 
time,  and  compelled  a  hearing,  and  had  a  large  and 
possibly  a  decisive  share  in  preventing  England 
from  recognizing  the  Southern  Confederacy,  and 
Thomas  Starr  King  coupled  with  Edward  D.  Baker, 
a  United  States  Senator,  were  the  two  men  most 
powerful  and  influential  in  keeping  California  in 
the  Union.  If  it  had  depended  upon  the  clergymen 
of  the  United  States,  slavery  would  probably  never 
have  been  abolished  to  this  day. 

It  happens  not  infrequently  that  when  clergymen 
act  either  as  a  body  or  in  their  individual  capacity, 
in  matters  affecting  a  community  or  the  country, 
they  show  a  great  lack  of  sensible  understanding, 
and  they  seem  particularly  liable  to  commit  great 


Preliminary  31 

blunders.  It  is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  their 
profession  sets  them  apart  and  isolates  them  from 
other  citizens  to  an  unusual  degree,  and  in  time  they 
suffer  from  it. 

A  recent  example  of  this  fallibility  occurred  in 
Seattle,  at  the  time  of  the  great  strike,  which  was 
planned  in  Russia  to  be  staged  in  Seattle  as  a 
Bolshevik  movement  in  which  every  trade  and  every 
business  in  Seattle  was  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
mob.  There  was  already  a  strike  in  the  City  of 
fifty  thousand  ship  workers,  which  was  in  violation 
of  their  written  contract  with  the  United  States 
Government  and  it  had  been  in  progress  for  some 
time.  To  add  to  this,  a  general  strike  was  ordered 
of  every  worker  in  the  City,  and  the  Unions  all 
voted  for  it  in  sympathy  with  the  shipping  strike, 
but  also  as  a  distinct  and  openly  avowed  attempt 
against  the  United  States  Government.  The 
strikers  were  to  take  possession  of  the  City  Hall, 
depose  the  Mayor,  name  their  own  police,  seize  all 
supplies  and  transportation  and  take  possession 
of  banks,  stores,  etc.,  and  the  stage  was  all  set  for 
ten  o’clock  on  a  Thursday  morning.  Of  course; 
many  people  began  to  lose  their  heads  and  to  act 
frantically  and  lay  in  supplies,  as  soon  as  the 
Unions  announced  their  programme.  On  Wednes¬ 
day,  the  day  before  this  revolution  was  to  open, 
the  Ministerial  Federation  of  the  City  of  Seattle 
telegraphed  to  President  Wilson,  and  also  to  Com- 


32  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

missioner  Piez,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  ship 
building  construction  of  the  United  States,  to  grant 
the  demands  of  the  ship  strikers  and  to  stop  the 
strike.  Fortunately  there  was  a  man  at  the  City 
Hall  who  was  prompt  to  act  and  his  proclamation 
on  Thursday  morning  was  to  the  effect  that  the 
City  of  Seattle  was  ready  for  war,  and  that  upon 
the  first  movement  of  the  mob,  it  would  be  met  with 
bayonets  and  machine  guns,  and  that  the  men  from 
the  Front  in  France  were  ready  and  waiting  to  take 
a  hand.  The  strikers  were  amazed  as  they  thought 
they  were  going  to  have  everything  their  own  way, 
and  by  ten  o’clock  the  strike  was  called  off.  As 
upon  that  memorable  occasion  which  Virgil  relates, 
when  the  raging  winds  and  waves  made  havoc  with 
the  Trojan  fleet,  and  when  Neptune  raised  his  head 
above  the  waters,  there  followed  an  instant  obedience 
to  his  will,  and  the  mad  tumult  was  over. 

I  speak  of  this  to  show  that  good  men  may 
through  ignorance  or  cowardice  do  many  wrong  and 
mischievous  things.  And  why  should  we  be  any 
more  disposed  to  think  that  they  would  be  infallible 
in  matters  of  religion;  and  what  is  their  judgment 
worth  when  it  comes  to  the  morality  or  immorality  of 
divorce,  or  whether  there  is  or  is  not  a  scriptural 
ground  for  divorce,  which  not  one  in  ten  thousand 
has  ever  investigated?  The  vast  majority  of  them 
are  committed  in  advance  and  are  prejudiced 
against  any  investigation  of  the  subject,  and  they 


Preliminary  S3 

are  not  open  to  conviction.  While  most  clergymen 
are  opposed  to  divorce,  and  may  even  disapprove 
of  it  in  a  sermon,  not  one  of  them,  so  far  as  ever 
I  have  known,  has  ever  questioned  the  fact  of  a 
scriptural  ground  for  divorce,  or  whether,  if  it  was 
a  reality,  it  would  be  worth  the  paper  it  was  printed 
on  from  any  moral  or  spiritual  standpoint  of  divine 
truth.  They  simply  take  it  for  granted.  Is  it  not 
very  odd  that  every  one  of  the  hundreds  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  Roman  Catholic  clergymen  know  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  scriptural  ground  of  divorce? 
How  is  this  astounding  division  between  the  two 
wings  of  Christendom  to  be  explained?  The  answer 
is  easy.  It  is  not  religion,  or  morals,  or  spiritual 
truth  that  is  at  the  foundation  of  the  differences, 
and  much  less  is  it  brains,  but  it  is  politics,  the 
politics  of  religion.  All  clerics  are  religious  poli¬ 
ticians.  Every  church  council  that  ever  was  held 
was  dominated  by  religious  politics,  and  so  it  is  in 
every  synod  or  convention  in  our  own  day.  This 
political  division  dates  back  to  the  Reformation  as 
its  origin.  The  Roman  Catholics  were  politically 
and  officially  opposed  to  divorce  in  the  time  of 
Henry  the  Eighth.  The  Protestants  were  led  to 
take  a  course  directly  opposite.  The  truth  of  the 
differences  was  not  so  important  as  the  political 
advantages.  In  order  to  win  Phillippe  of  Hesse,  a 
very  powerful  and  influential  Prince,  over  to  the 
side  of  the  Reformers,  Luther  was  led  to  consent 


34  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  iDivorce  Forgery 

\ 

and  actually  to  give  his  approval  to  Phillippe’s 
marriage  to  a  second  wife,  the  first  being  still  living. 
Luther  and  Melancthon  both  condoned  this  iniquity, 
albeit  very  sorrowfully  and  reluctantly.  In  con¬ 
trast  with  this  betrayal  and  injury  to  the  great 
cause  of  the  Reformation,  Catholicism  stood  true 
and  resisted  every  attempt  of  King  Henry  the 
Eighth  to  secure  his  divorce  with  its  approval.  Sir 
Thomas  More  was  appointed  Lord  Chancellor 
against  his  will,  to  approve  of  this  divorce  and  he 
went  grandly  to  the  block  in  opposing  it,  and  he 
presents  a  moral  contrast  to  Luther.  Protestantism 
can  never  retrieve  its  error  and  rid  itself  of  this 
laxity  of  morals  until  it  renounces  all  divorce.  Is 
it  not  strange  that  Protestant  clergymen  should 
officially  sanction  that  which  they  do  not  and  can¬ 
not  sanction  privately? 

It  is  a  great  risk  for  a  man  to  go  through  a 
Theological  Seminary.  I  am  glad  that  many  of 
these  institutions  are  not  what  they  were  fifty  and 
a  hundred  years  ago.  But  there  is  still  and  always 
will  be  a  danger  of  a  man  mortgaging  himself  for 
life  in  advance  to  a  particular  brand  of  religious 
opinions  which  may  be  entirely  second  hand  so  far 
as  he  is  concerned.  The  chances  are  that  after 
several  years  of  this  intellectual  bondage  to  doc¬ 
trines  approved  and  required  by  any  particular 
church,  he  will  never  have  any  real  convictions  of 
his  own  and  it  is  always  certain  to  result,  in  the 


Preliminary  35 

majority  of  cases,  in  intellectual  emasculation.  If 
he  ever  comes  out  of  such  an  experience  as  a  real 
man  he  will  be  fortunate. 

I  hope  my  attitude  towards  the  clergy  will  not  be 
misconstrued,  even  if  I  may  have  said  something 
unfair  or  unjust.  I  would  not  willingly  do  so,  for 
these  people  are  my  people,  and  I  know  their  worth 
and  belong  to  their  class.  Like  Paul,  I  may  be 
excused  if  I  boast  a  little.  My  great-grandfather 
came  from  Scotland  in  1758  as  a  missionary  to 
Pennsylvania  and  he  established  many  churches 
which  remain  to-day.  With  other  of  my  relatives 
he  aided  in  founding  colleges.  Several  of  my  im¬ 
mediate  family  have  been  ministers,  two  of  them  also 
missionaries.  A  number  of  my  family  have  been 
Professors  in  colleges  and  teachers  in  seminaries; 
my  father,  a  distinguished  lawyer,  and  a  life  long 
educator,  and  a  pioneer  in  establishing  common 
schools  in  my  State,  and  also  one  of  the  Faculty 
of  a  College  all  his  life  as  a  lecturer  on  English 
Common  Law.  They,  like  the  clergymen,  all  be¬ 
longed  to  the  Brahmin  class,  and  I,  the  humblest 
of  them,  why  should  I  not  be  proud  of  them  and 
glory  in  their  record?  Because  I  love  the  cause  of 
Protestantism  and  the  clergy  is  the  very  reason 
why  I  should  not  spare  my  criticism  where  the 
truth  is  concerned;  but  I  do  not  wish  to  say  any¬ 
thing  that  would  justly  give  offence. 

As  I  have  already  intimated  there  has  been  a 


36  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

marvellous  change  for  the  better  in  the  old,  unlovely 
barbaric  orthodoxy  of  the  days  of  our  grandfathers. 
The  New  Theology  has  brought  God  and  Jesus 
Christ  nearer  to  us,  and  brought  us  nearer  to  God. 
It  is  really  wonderful.  On  the  whole,  the  Medical 
profession  has  perhaps  made  the  greatest  advance 
of  the  three  learned  professions.  All  honor  to  those 
devoted  men,  the  physicians,  the  surgeons  and 
scientists  who  love  truth  and  have  so  nearly 
gotten  rid  of  their  errors  and  superstitions.  I  can 
look  back  to  a  time  when  I  saw  our  good  old  family 
physician  bleed  my  Mother  and  catch  her  blood  in 
a  wash  basin.  There  were  many  other  harmful 
superstitions  that  the  profession  has  happily  gotten 
rid  of  without  any  outside  pressure.  The  profes¬ 
sion  of  the  law  is  the  most  backward  of  the  three, 
and  in  the  last  hundred  years  it  has  badly  retro¬ 
graded.  Like  the  Clergy  and  the  Church,  the  Law¬ 
yers  and  the  Courts  are  bound  by  precedents,  by 
traditions  and  by  superstitions  which  defy  all  com¬ 
mon  sense  and  good  religion  and  good  law.  May 
I  be  indulged  a  minute  or  two,  to  make  good  my 
assertion  as  to  the  latter,  as  it  has  a  general  bearing 
on  my  subject. 

The  English  Common  Law  is  the  greatest  monu¬ 
ment  of  civilization  that  the  word  possesses.  Crude 
and  barbaric  in  some  respects,  it  is  essentially  the 
law  of  righteousness ;  and  being  an  unwritten  law, 
the  growth  of  two  thousand  years,  and  unlike  the 


Preliminary  37 

Mosaic  law  which  was  written,  it  was  less  likely  to 
be  perverted,  as  it  consisted  only  of  principles.  The 
foundation  of  every  sound  principle  of  law  in  the 
United  States  is,  and  always  will  be  the  English 
Common  Law.  The  Supreme  Court  of  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  has  said  that  Christianity  is  a  part  of  the 
Common  law.  Exactly  one  hundred  years  ago  a 
case  arose  in  New  Hampshire  in  the  Courts  of  that 
State,  out  of  an  attempt  of  the  Legislature  to 
modify  the  Charter  of  Dartmouth  College  so  as  to 
permit  an  enlargement  of  its  Board  of  Trustees. 
When  the  act  was  passed  it  was  taken  into  the 
Courts  of  New  Hampshire,  and  finally  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  that  State,  which  affirmed  the 
right  of  the  Legislature  to  make  the  change,  on  the 
theory  that  as  the  people  of  New  Hampshire  were 
the  sovereign  power  to  grant  a  charter,  they  had 
the  power  to  modify  and  regulate  it.  The  case 
was  then  taken  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  Daniel  Webster  became  the  Mephistopheles 
in  the  case,  and  he  finally  secured  the  reversal  of 
the  opinions  of  all  the  Courts  of  New  Hampshire 
that  her  people  had  the  right  through  the  Legis¬ 
lature  to  modify  the  charter.  It  was  taken  into  the 
Supreme  Court  at  the  instance  of  the  Federalists  of 
New  England,  who  represented  the  theories  of  Alex¬ 
ander  Hamilton  as  opposed  to  those  of  Thomas 
Jefferson,  and  this  little  two-penny  quarrel  between 
the  Trustees,  became  a  political  question  which  has 


38  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  tDivorce  Forgery 

changed  the  whole  face  of  our  jurisprudence,  and 
raised  the  question  whether  the  people  of  the  United 
States  have  any  right  to  control  or  regulate  cor¬ 
porations.  It  became  a  political  question  of  Autoc¬ 
racy  vs.  Democracy.  The  methods  which  were 
used  to  secure  a  reversal  in  the  Supreme  Court  were 
reprehensible.  The  Court  perverted  the  facts  and 
perverted  the  law.  It  decided  that  a  franchise  was 
a  contract  within  the  meaning  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  This  was  not  true.  It  was 
not  only  not  true  but  it  was  a  legal  quibble.  The 
effect  of  this  decision  was  to  declare  that  the  grant 
of  a  franchise  became  a  vested  right,  that  while  the 
Sovereign  people  could  grant  a  franchise,  they 
could  never  thereafter  control  it  or  recover  it  by 
forfeiture  on  account  of  violations  of  the  condi¬ 
tions  upon  which  it  was  granted,  and  that  the  people 
could  part  with  their  sovereignty,  which  is  an  im¬ 
possibility.  Now,  at  common  law,  a  charter  is 
always  granted  upon  two  conditions,  namely: — 
First :  That  the  Corporation  shall  first  serve  the 
public.  Secondly :  That  the  Corporation  shall  do 
no  act  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  the  public. 
The  violation  of  either  of  these  conditions  mves  the 

O 

people  the  right  to  forfeit  and  revoke  any  charter, 
as  no  corporation  owns  its  franchise,  and  the  public 
may  resume  the  use  of  them  whenever  a  Court  of 
Equity  so  decrees.  These  two  conditions  comprise 
the  entire  Law  and  Gospel  relating  to  Corporations 


Preliminary  39 

and  cover  any  and  every  conceivable  question  aris¬ 
ing  under  their  regulation.  Corporations  must 
regulate  themselves.  Courts  of  Law  never  can  effect 
it,  and  there  is  no  necessity  for  the  Legislatures  of 
Forty-eight  States  ever  passing  a  law  regulating 
corporations.  These  two  basic  conditions,  adminis¬ 
tered  by  a  Court  of  Equity  are  sufficient  for  any 
conceivable  case.  When  the  Corporation  violates 
its  obligations  to  the  public  or  commits  crimes,  it 
has  violated  the  conditions  upon  which  it  secured  its 
franchise,  and  it  should  be  revoked  as  an  example 
to  malefactors. 

The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  decid¬ 
ing  that  a  franchise  was  a  contract  said,  in  effect, 
that  these  Common  Law  principles  were  not  law,, 
and  that  a  Corporation  was  immune  from  all  con¬ 
trol  ;  and  so  they  remain,  and  the  result  has  been 
that  there  are  a  few  of  these  Frankensteins  that,  if 
it  was  to  their  interests  to  do  so,  could  demonstrate 
the  fact  that  they  are  more  powerful  than  the 
United  States  Government,  for  they  could  always 
act  more  quickly  and  more  directly. 

The  harvest  that  has  been  reaped  from  this 
patent  perversion  of  fundamental  principles  of 
law  has  been  a  sorry  one.  Aside  from  the  evils  of 
robbery  and  injustice  to  the  public,  the  law  itself 
has  been  made  a  sport  of  and  degraded.  Courts  of 
Equity  are  the  only  tribunals  to  which  Corporations 
are  really  amenable.  They  are  the  only  tribunals 


40  yNie  Bible  and  Scriptural  {Divorce  Forgery 

of  which  they  have  any  dread.  They  have  no  more 
use  for  a  Court  of  Equity  than  they  have  for  a 
church,  except  to  apply  for  injunctions,  wThich  are 
generally  sued  out  to  protect  their  rascality.  It  is 
well  known  to  every  lawyer  that  Courts  of  Equity 
have  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  all  matters  pertaining 
to  Corporations,  trusts,  partnerships,  insanity  and 
marriage — as  courts  of  law  are  incompetent  to  deal 
with  these  subjects.  But  Equity,  and  Courts  of 
Equity,  with  their  admirable  and  beautiful  methods 
for  the  investigation  of  truth  have  largely  fallen 
into  desuetude.  It  is  true  that  theoretically  there  is 
an  Equity  side  to  every  Court  of  Record,  but  the 
perversion  is  none  the  less  true,  and  nearly  every¬ 
thing  is  restricted  to  Courts  of  Law.  The  difference 
is  that  in  a  Court  of  Equity  the  only  question  is :  “Is 
this  matter  right  or  is  it  wrong?” — whereas  in  the 
Courts  of  Law  the  only  constant  effort  is  to  juggle 
the  law  so  as  to  defeat  the  law.  This  degeneracy 
of  the  law  commenced  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  one  hundred  years  ago.  A  political 
principle,  good  in  itself,  but  destructive  when  in¬ 
jected  into  a  Court,  was  deliberately  adopted  by 
that  Court,  and  it  is  charitable  to  believe  that  it 
never  could  have  really  foreseen  the  mischief  and 
danger  it  would  cause  our  Government.  Webster, 
too,  needs  to  be  covered  with  the  mantle  of  charity, 
the  same  that  Whittier  extended  to  him  in  his 
“Ichabod.”  As  a  part  of  this  harvest  of  law-break- 


Preliminary  41 

ing  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  we 
are  to-day  having  conditions  and  strikes  that 
threaten  the  very  existence  of  Government.  When 
Corporations,  public  utility  Corporations,  are  not 
amenable  to  a  Court  of  Equity,  there  is  nothing  left 
but  to  strike,  and  a  strike  is  not  only  the  logical, 
but  the  only  practical  resistance  to  tyranny,  if 
tyranny  and  injustice  there  be.  The  Supreme  Court 
in  effect,  practically  has  declared  that  the  peo¬ 
ple  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  control  of  Cor¬ 
porations  by  taking  away  a  charter.  Instead  of 
three  parties  to  a  franchise,  the  public,  the  corpo¬ 
ration  and  the  employees,  there  are  only  the  two 
latter.  Instead  of  the  public  going  into  a  Court 
of  Equity  and  compelling  justice  to  itself,  the  Cor¬ 
poration  or  the  Employees,  the  Court  being  open 
to  any  one  of  the  three  parties,  it  is  a  fight  between 
the  Corporation  and  employees  in  which  the  public 
is  always  the  sufferer,  and  an  imbecile  government 
starts  a  new  Congressional  investigation,  a  thing 
that  always  has  been  and  always  will  be  a  joke  at 
the  expense  of  the  public.  Strikes  would  be  abso¬ 
lutely  impossible,  unnecessary  and  useless  if  the 
people  had  not  been  robbed  of  their  right  to  control 
and  regulate  Corporations  through  Courts  of 
Equity.  The  methods  of  investigations  of  wrong 
of,  or  to,  either  the  Corporation,  the  Employees,  or 
the  Public  are  actually  perfect,  through  the  most 
experienced  and  competent  examiners  and  Masters 


42  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  i Divorce  Forgery 

in  Equity  to  inform  the  Conscience  of  the  Court, 
There  may  be  one,  or  forty,  if  the  Court  should 
think  necessary.  They  might  be  lawyers  or  experts, 
but  they  would  not  be  politicians  nor  would  they 
be  political  footballs,  as  Congressional  Investiga¬ 
tions  are  liable  to  be. 

To  correct,  if  possible,  the  mischievous  results  of 
the  principle  in  the  Dartmouth  College  case,  the 
Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  was  passed.  This  law 
was  necessarily  an  abnormality,  and  it  violates 
natural  rights.  It  has  never  accomplished  any¬ 
thing  to  its  credit,  but  it  has  made  much  mischief, 
and  the  evil  of  the  Dartmouth  College  case  remains ; 
and  it  was  possibly  intended  to  remain  by  those  who 
passed  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law. 

The  threatened  strike  of  1916  when  four  hundred 
thousand  railroad  operators  took  Congress  by  the 
throat,  and  compelled  it,  with  the  aid  of  the  Presi¬ 
dent  to  pass  the  eight  hour  law,  was  all  wrong  and 
never  could  have  occurred  if  the  Courts  had  been 
working  normally  to  force  Corporations  to  do  what 
they  should  do.  There  was  no  time  to  determine 
whether  the  act  was  or  was  not  just  and  reasonable 
or  fair  to  Corporations  and  to  the  public.  Such  a 
strike  would  have  been  revolution.  The  act  was  un¬ 
constitutional,  although  the  Supreme  Court  has  said 
otherwise.  Politics  and  cowardice  dictated  the  act, 
and  it  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  the  Supreme 


Preliminary  43 

Court  thought  it  prudent  for  its  own  sake  to  ap¬ 
prove  of  its  constitutionality. 

The  Coal  Miners’  Strike  has  forced  the  Govern¬ 
ment  to  do  what  it  did  not  dare  to  do  in  1916. 
Injunctions  have  been  issued  against  both  operators 
and  miners,  and  it  is  a  weak  and  ineffectual  effort 
to  compel  a  nominal  but  an  unreal  obedience  to  law 
and  order.  All  this  should  have  been  unnecessary. 
It  puts  both  the  strikers  and  the  Government  in 
false  positions.  They  are  both  right  and  both 
wrong.  Under  a  normal  legal  system,  as  already 
provided  by  the  Common  law,  such  a  state  of 
affairs  would  be  impossible.  Wrongs  are  easily 
righted  in  Courts  of  Equity.  But  if  Corporations 
are  not  to  be  governed  in  the  only  way  that  the  law 
provides,  by  destroying  a  few  of  them  as  warnings, 
when  they  violate  the  conditions  upon  which  they 
receive  their  charters,  then  nothing  can  be  done  but 
start  strikes,  which  means  suffering  for  the  public 
and  a  debacle  of  all  law. 

Many  years  ago  there  was  a  case  in  one  of  the 
United  States  Courts  of  Illinois,  in  which  a  suit 
was  brought  under  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  law 
against  the  Standard  Oil  Company.  The  Company 
was  charged  with  rebating,  and  a  jury  found  it 
guilty  under  all  the  fourteen  counts  of  the  indict¬ 
ment.  The  Court  imposed  a  fine  of  twenty-nine 
millions  of  dollars,  which  was  only  a  joke,  as  the 


44  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

Company  knew  that  it  did  not  need  to  pay  it,  and 
after  the  usual  interim  the  fine  was  removed  by 
another  Court  of  law,  and  not  a  dollar  of  it  ever 
paid.  Had  the  Judge  who  tried  that  case  been 
really  a  great  Judge  and  a  brave  man  he  would  have 
had  an  opportunity  of  immortalizing  himself.  When 
that  verdict  was  recorded  convicting  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  of  that  crime  he  would  have  imme¬ 
diately  sentenced  the  Standard  Oil  Company  to  the 
forfeiture  of  its  charter.  At  that  point  every 
Standard  Oil  Company  Attorney  present  would 
have  jumped  to  his  feet  with  the  exclamation:  “My 
God,  Judge,  you  can’t  do  that!  What  right  has  this 
Court  to  do  that  when  this  prosecution  was  not  for 
any  such  purpose  as  forfeiting  a  charter?  We  are 
entitled  to  a  hearing,  &c.”  The  Judge  would  reply: 
“Well,  you  shall  have  a  hearing  on  the  spot.  The 
parties  are  all  in  Court,  and  the  Court  has  juris¬ 
diction.  Mr.  United  States  District  Attorney,  sit 
down  at  that  table  and  draw  up  a  petition  ad¬ 
dressed  to  the  Equity  side  of  this  Court  setting 
forth  the  fact  that  under  a  suit  brought  in  this 
Court  the  Standard  Oil  Company  has  been  con¬ 
victed  of  a  crime  (only  one  of  a  long  list  of  crimes 
of  every  kind  dating  back  the  last  forty-five  years), 
and  the  verdict  is  of  record.  Ask  that  this  Court 
shall  revoke  the  Charter  of  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany,  and  appoint  a  receiver  or  receivers  to  make 
sale  of  all  its  property  in  the  United  States;  and 


Preliminary  45 

attach  a  decree  to  that  effect.  Now  gentlemen, 
what  have  you  to  say  at  this  hearing?  Can  you 
deny  this  conviction  and  this  verdict,  and  is  there 
anything  more  that  could  be  said?”  Of  course 
they  would  claim  that  the  proceeding  was  irregular, 
high-handed,  and  altogether  unlawful,  and  that  it 
would  be  shown  by  precedents  that  it  was  altogether 
illegal,  beginning  with  the  Dartmouth  case  and 
clear  down  the  line,  and  the  Judge  might  admit 
that  it  was.  But  he  might  have  said  to  the  lawyers, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  and  also  the  people  of  the  United  States : — 
“This  Court  will  not  recognize  any  precedent  that 
gives  immunity  to  malefactors.  So  far  as  this 
Court  is  concerned,  there  is  to  be  no  doubt  that 
there  is  a  God  in  Israel.”  Such  an  opinion  and 
decree  would  have  startled  the  Country — and  also 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  It  is 
interesting  to  conjecture  after  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  would  appeal,  what  that  Court  would  have 
done  and  what  possible  pretext  it  could  invent  to 
reverse  that  decree.  Would  the  Supreme  Court  have 
dared  to  do  it?  I  am  sure  they  would  have  faced 
an  impeachment  that  would  have  cleaned  out  every 
Judge  that  would  have  favored  a  reversal.  But  the 
influence  of  precedents  is  so  strong  in  every  Court, 
and  the  clamps,  political  and  otherwise,  are  so 
tightly  riveted  on  Federal  and  other  Judges,  that 
it  would  be  a  rare  man  who  would  ever  dare  to  make 


46  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  i Divorce  Forgery 

an  issue  between  the  people  of  the  United  States  and 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court;  which  wittingly 
or  unwittingly  has  protected  and  shielded  malefac¬ 
tors  and  degraded  the  law. 

No  fair-minded  man  has  ever  doubted  the  integ¬ 
rity  and  the  high  individual  character  of  the  men 
who  have  comprised  this  Court  during  a  hundred 
years ;  but  who  is  responsible  for  the  fact  that  the 
Court  by  relying  upon  the  sanctity  of  precedents 
which  have  been  subversive  of  law  and  justice,  has 
become  practically  a  shield  for  Corporation  male¬ 
factors  which  have  exploited  the  whole  land?  Indi¬ 
vidual  responsibility  is  so  attenuated  that  it  be¬ 
comes  vague  to  the  vanishing  point,  yet  the  evil 
remains.  The  morality  of  judges  may  not  lightly 
be  questioned,  but  the  Court  itself,  an  impersonal 
thing  has  much  to  answer  for.  Its  dealing  with 
the  Standard  Oil  Company  and  the  Tobacco  Trust 
cases  a  few  years  ago,  when  there  was  an  effort  to 
forfeit  the  Charters  of  these  criminal  Corporations, 
shows  its  true  character.  This  effort  failed  and 
these  Corporations  were  benefited  by  the  marvellous 
outcome  of  the  Court’s  decision.  This  Court  also 
legislated  the  word  “reasonable”  into  the  Sherman 
Anti-Trust  law,  to  let  criminals  escape,  after  Con¬ 
gress  had  twice  refused  to  amend  that  law  by  the 
insertion  of  that  word;  thus  usurping  a  function 
of  Government  that  Congress  alone  possessed  and 
treating  it  with  contempt.  Notwithstanding  all 


Preliminary  47 

this  there  have  been  some  good  men  in  that  Court. 
Associate  Justice  Judge  Harlan,  on  the  occasion  of 
the  decision  referred  to  read  the  riot  act  to  his 
brother  Judges,  in  a  manner  that  was  most  edifying 
to  plain  and  honest  people,  yet  that  was  all  it 
amounted  to. 

The  people  have  been  trained  to  respect  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  and  even  to 
invest  it  with  an  odor  of  sanctity.  This  is  as  it 
should  be,  provided  the  Court  is  worthy  of  respect. 
Blackstone  speaking  of  the  law  in  a  general  way 
said  it  had  “its  seat  in  the  bosom  of  God.”  It  is 
very  fitting  therefore  that  there  should  be  an  odor 
of  sanctity  about  this  Court,  but  unfortunately  the 
odor  is  not  always  of  sanctity.  The  fact  is  that  for 
a  hundred  years  it  has  been  a  Court  of  politics  as 
well  as  a  Court  of  law,  and  the  land  is  suffering  to¬ 
day  from  its  mistakes.  The  Dartmouth  College  case, 
the  Dred  Scott  case  and  the  Standard  Oil  and 
Tobacco  Trust  cases  are  sufficient  to  justify  this 
criticism. 

How  are  these  intrenched  and  admitted  evils  to 
be  overcome?  Theodore  Roosevelt  advocated  the 
recall  of  such  judicial  decisions  as  were  vicious,  but 
I  am  not  aware  that  he  ever  explained  exactly  how 
it  was  to  be  effected,  whether  by  an  act  of  Congress 
or  a  plebiscite.  It  is  quite  certain  that  the  Supreme 
Court  will  never  have  the  grace  to  reverse  itself. 
Without  the  consent  of  this  Court,  which  would  be 


48  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

tantamount  to  a  reversal,  it  would  seem  that  it 
would  be  unconstitutional  for  Congress  to  pass  any 
legislation  that  would  nullify  Supreme  Court  de¬ 
cisions,  as  each  of  the  three  branches  of  our  Govern¬ 
ment  in  theory  are  independent  of  each  other,  and 
the  Constitution  provides  no  method  by  which  the 
people  may  veto  an  act  of  the  government.  While 
the  Constitution  does  not  recognize  this  right,  yet 
in  the  last  analysis  it  undoubtedly  exists, — the  right 
of  the  people  to  give  final  orders  as  to  their  own 
well  being,  or  to  emancipate  themselves  from  vicious 
Court  decisions.  An  amendment  to  the  Constitution 
would  make  such  a  proceeding  regular  and  orderly. 
This  might  require  a  long  look  ahead,  and  a  mighty 
struggle,  which  in  any  event,  is  bound  to  come 
sooner  or  later. 

We  have  been  talking  of  an  evil, — an  autocracy 
intrenched  in  the  Courts  of  the  United  States, 
foreign  to  every  principle  of  democracy  and  good 
Americanism,  and  have  suggested  how  we  might  get 
back  to  the  two  principles  of  law  governing  cor¬ 
porations.  Let  us  now  turn  back  to  another  evil 
which  is  also  intrenched  in  the  law  and  also  in 
religion,  and  ask  the  same  question  as  to  divorce. 

How  is  this  intrenched  and  admitted  evil  to  be 
overcome?  The  answer  is  easier,  and  the  effort  will 
also  be  easier  than  in  the  case  of  vicious  Corpora¬ 
tion  law.  If  the  Protestant  Clergymen  of  the 
United  States  have  any  desire  to  abolish  divorce, 


Preliminary  49 

they  could  accomplish  it  inside  of  five  years,  in 
every  State  of  the  Union,  following  the  example  of 
South  Carolina.  It  should  be  done  by  them,  and 
they  should  have  the  credit  of  it,  but  if  not,  it  will 
be  done,  sooner  or  later  in  spite  of  them.  There  is 
every  reason  both  from  the  religious  and  political 
standpoint  why  all  divorce  should  be  abolished 
everywhere. 

Divorce  a  vinculo  matrimonii  which  allows  the 
party  to  remarry  is  what  is  meant  by  abolishing 
divorce.  Judicial  separations,  which  are  easily 
obtained  when  a  husband  and  wife  should  not  live 
together  for  sufficient  reasons,  or  separation 
a  mensa  et  thoro,  from  bed  and  board,  is  not 
divorce.  Neither  party  can  marry  and  each  one  is 
protected  from  the  other. 

The  disgrace  of  Corporation  law,  and  also  the 
disgrace  of  divorce,  both  of  which  are  founded  on 
wrong,  one  of  them  upon  a  court  that  perverted  the 
laws,  the  other  upon  a  perversion  of  the  Bible,  are 
both  a  disgrace  to  Christianity  and  good  morals.  If 
we  claim  to  be  people  of  ordinary  common  sense,  let 
us  make  some  kind  of  use  of  it  by  getting  rid  of 
these  evils. 

The  great  movement  in  the  Sixteenth  Century  for 
religious  freedom  and  emancipation  from  the  cor¬ 
ruption  of  a  hierarchy,  was  a  distinct  advance  in 
civilization  as  well.  It  was  a  natural  desire  for  civil 
and  religious  liberty.  There  was  never  a  time  in 


50  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  \Divorce  Forgery 

England  when  it  did  not  seek  some  expression.  The 
beginning  of  Protestantism  was  really  in  A.D.  597 
when  those  seven  English  Bishops  met  Augustine  up¬ 
on  the  river  Dee  and  gave  him  a  final  answer  and 
refusal  to  the  demand  of  the  Pope  that  the  English 
Church  should  conform  to  the  Roman  in  the  matter 
of  the  observance  of  a  certain  day  for  Christmas  and 
Easter,  and  that  the  English  Church  should  give  up 
the  liturgy  of  St.  John,  for  that  of  St.  Peter.  These 
Bishops  were  jealous  not  only  for  religion,  but  for 
their  civil  liberty.  The  same  thing  occurred  in  A.D. 
1215,  when  the  Bishops,  the  laity  and  clergy,  and 
even  English  Romanists  arose  en  masse  and  com¬ 
pelled  King  John  to  sign  the  Magna  Charta.  Even 
William  the  Conqueror,  who  made  a  conquest  of  the 
British  Isles  ostensibly  for  the  Pope,  but  really  for 
himself,  refused  to  observe  his  promise  to  do  fealty 
and  pay  Peter’s  Pence,  well  knowing  the  temper  and 
instincts  of  the  British  people  for  liberty.  And  in 
the  Fourteenth  Century,  England  passed  the  Statute 
of  Praemunire  which  forbade  any  Englishman  or  Ec¬ 
clesiastic  to  prefer  any  appeal  to  the  Pope  of  Rome 
under  penalty  of  forfeiture  of  lands  and  goods,  and 
other  severe  punishment,  thus  emancipating  England 
from  vassalage  to  Rome,  and  establishing  the  Civil 
Liberty  of  England  forever.  And  then  followed  the 
religious  emancipation  of  the  Sixteenth  Century, 
completing  the  great  conquest  of  Civil  and  Religious 
Liberty.  This  was  the  mighty  work  of  Protestant- 


Preliminary  51 

ism,  extending  over  a  thousand  years,  by  which  Eng¬ 
land  was  at  last  enabled  to  have  a  Bible  and  printed 
in  English.  The  Bible  thus  became  and  is  the  world’s 
charter  of  religion  and  civilization.  This  was  a 
world  victory.  But  reformers  are  very  human,  and 
they  were  bound  to  make  some  mistakes.  In  order 
to  offset  the  claim  of  an  Infallible  Church,  they  set 
up  an  equally  preposterous  claim  of  an  Infallible 
Bible.  They  not  only  made  it  a  matter  of  life  and 
death  to  question  anything  in  the  Bible,  but  they 
put  their  narrow  and  unlovely  interpretations  upon 
it.  If  the  Bible  had  said  that  the  “Moon  was  made 
of  green  cheese”  they  would  have  believed  it.  Many 
wrongs  and  superstitions  have  grown  out  of  this 
attitude  toward  the  Bible,  which  the  Bible  has  been, 
most  unjustly  and  unfairly,  called  upon  to  defend. 
Divorce  is  supposed  by  many  to  be  defended  by 
Scripture,  but  this  is  not  actually  true.  It  will 
always  be  a  disgrace  to  Protestantism  until  it  recti¬ 
fies  its  indirect  approval  of  Divorce  arising  from  the 
example  of  Luther  and  the  idea  of  an  infallible 
Bible.  It  should  address  itself  to  the  great  work  of 
purging  itself  from  this  iniquity,  and  sending  divorce 
to  the  limbo  of  slavery,  polygamy  or  any  other 
vicious  thing  that  injures  society.  Vicious  people 
should  not  be  allowed  to  justify  their  vice,  by  making 
false  claims  with  reference  to  the  Bible,  and  clergy¬ 
men  should  not  be  allowed  (shall  I  say  it?)  to  pass 
the  buck,  and  shuffle  off  their  responsibility  on  the 


52  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

Bible.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  right  on  the 
subject  of  divorce.  All  honor  to  it!  It  believes  in 
the  Sacrament  of  Marriage,  and  safeguards  it  and 
dignifies  it.  Protestantism  has  lost  the  Sacrament 
of  Marriage  and  denies  it,  and  is  responsible  for 
the  fact  that  marriage  has  become  dishonored,  de¬ 
rided  and  debauched.  All  divorce,  and  every  divorce 
begins  in  either  wrong  or  in  vice,  the  wrong  being 
usually  mutual,  and  yet  Protestantism  must  logic¬ 
ally  claim,  with  its  theory  of  Scripture  that  divorce 
is  a  Divine  institution,  while  at  the  same  time  it 
denies  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage.  Why  should  not 
Protestantism  at  once  retrieve  this  false  position 
and  thus  invite  the  two  wings  of  Christianity,  so 
far  as  divorce  is  concerned,  into  one  generous  and 
wholesome  fellowship?  Religious  politics  should  not 
bar  the  way,  since  every  Protestant  clergyman 
knows  in  his  heart  that  with  reference  to  divorce  the 
attitude  of  his  church  is  a  false  one.  Let  them  be 
humble  and  honest,  and  let  them  remember  that  here¬ 
tofore  the  intellect  of  the  w’orld  has  always  been  in 
advance  of  that  of  the  Church  where  reforms  were 
concerned,  and  that  in  the  matter  of  divorce,  they 
have  the  opportunity  of  doing  something  themselves, 
which  otherwise  will  be  done  in  spite  of  them. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  BIBLE 

The  Bible  was  never  written  as  a  book,  and  it  is 
an  error  to  think  of  it  as  such.  It  is  a  collection  of 
writings,  an  omnium  gatherum.  It  is  very  miscel¬ 
laneous  in  character.  They  were  written  by  a  great 
many  different  people  who  lived  in  different  ages  and 
centuries  apart.  They  comprise  literature  suitable 
to  the  early  ages  of  mankind,  a  curious  mixture  of 
undoubted  science  and  Uncle  Remus  stories,  or  folk 
lore,  which,  understood  properly,  were  never  in¬ 
tended  to  be  literally  believed,  and  therefore  are  not 
entirely  childish,  but  which  old-fashioned  orthodoxy 
has  childishly  insisted  upon  as  history ;  and  upon 
these  myths  have  risked  the  integrity  of  its  plan  of 
salvation,  instead  of  resting  it  upon  Jesus  Christ 
alone.  Thus  we  have  an  account  of  the  fiat  creation 
of  man,  or  rather  of  two  men,  one  of  flesh  and  the 
other  of  spirit,  made  in  the  image  of  God,  and  this 
is  the  great  initial  spiritual  truth  of  the  Bible;  the 
childish  story  of  the  creation  of  woman  from  the  rib 
of  the  man;  who  was  probably  originally  bi-sexual, 
man  a  mere  differentiation  and  coming  later  in 

53 


54  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  F orgery 

period  of  time;  the  two  different  stories  of  the  flood, 
a  picturesque  and  imaginative  account  of  a  histor¬ 
ical  fact  happening  ages  before  the  Scriptures  were 
written,  one  cause  assigned  being  forty  days  and 
nights  of  rain  which  would  be  inadequate  to  produce 
such  results;  and  the  other,  the  foundations  of  the 
great  deep  being  broken  up,  was  no  doubt,  the  true 
cause  and  which  may  be  explained  by  the  subsidence 
of  a  continent,  probably  Atlantis  according  to  the 
statement  recorded  by  Plato.  Later  follows  the 
story  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  the  confounding  of 
tongues  and  the  Dispersion,  after  which  the  haze  of 
fable  begins  to  clear  and  we  come  down  to  the  biog¬ 
raphies  of  individuals  more  or  less  reliable. 

Noah  is  probably  as  mythical  a  character  as 
Adam,  but  it  cannot  well  be  doubted  that  Abraham 
was  a  real  personage  of  flesh  and  blood ;  the  greatest 
figure  of  his  age  who  seems  to  be  the  first  who  had  a 
definite  conception  of  the  One  God.  But  his  de¬ 
scendants,  the  Children  of  Israel,  worshipped  many 
gods  during  a  period  of  about  fifteen  hundred  years 
and  never  really  settled  down  to  monotheism  until 
their  return  from  the  Second  Captivity  of  Babylon. 
The  Bible  furnishes  an  excellent  text  book  to  illus¬ 
trate  the  evolution  of  morals,  civilization  and  re¬ 
ligion  from  their  earliest  beginnings  until  we  come 
to  New  Testament  times  and  the  spiritual  conception 
of  God  as  we  find  it  in  Jesus  Christ. 

The  origin,  development  and  purpose  of  the 


The  Bible 


55 


Jewish  people,  a  selected  race  is  the  burden  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  history,  ethics,  poetry  and 
prophecy  all  play  their  part  in  the  drama  of  the 
race.  It  is  a  strange  medley  of  the  human  and 
Divine.  Among  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  the 
Jewish  race  is  the  greatest  miracle  of  all  the  ages 
save  one,  that  of  Jesus  Christ,  also  a  Jew,  who  inde¬ 
pendently  of  any  of  his  great  works,  is  Himself,  the 
One  great  miracle  of  the  Universe. 

When  we  come  to  the  New  Testament  we  have 
reached  the  climax  of  the  Divine,  in  the  person  of 
Jesus  Christ  who  was  born  a  Galilean  peasant,  yet 
was  the  Son  of  God.  Who  His  earthly  father  was, 
or  whether  He  had  one  or  not  is  not  of  any  great  or 
vital  importance.  That  He  was  a  historical  charac¬ 
ter,  and  that  the  record  of  Him  is  substantially  true, 
cannot  admit  of  any  reasonable  doubt ;  nor  the  fact 
of  His  trial,  crucifixion  and  resurrection ;  nor  the 
fact  that  in  His  life  and  death  man  was  brought 
nearer  to  God  through  the  Atonement,  which,  how¬ 
ever  we  may  view  it  is  the  world’s  greatest  fact.  The 
essential  facts  of  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  prove  them¬ 
selves  and  need  no  vouchers ;  and  if  we  should  have 
nothing  left  to  us  but  the  Ideal  of  Jesus  Christ,  He 
would  still  be  for  every  soul  the  Saviour  of  Mankind. 
He  is  the  true  Light  that  lighteth  every  man  that 
cometh  into  the  world. 

In  the  beginning  of  Christianity  it  had  nothing 
to  go  on  but  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  some 


56  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  iDivorce  Forgery 

respects  it  might  be  better  if  we  could  forget  every¬ 
thing  else  and  return  to  that  point.  It  bad  not  yet 
established  any  Churches,  nor  formulated  a  Trinity. 
Paul  presently  began  to  Judaize  Christianity;  and 
in  the  Second  Century  some  wonderful  man  wrote 
the  Fourth  Gospel.  An  eminent  scholar  fixes  the 
year  188  when  this  Gospel  was  first  known.  The 
writers  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  may  never  have 
heard  of  the  Logos,  but  in  any  event  it  was  left  to 
the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  identify  Jesus 
with  the  Logos,  an  idea  familiar  to  the  Greeks  and 
derived  from  them.  This  gave  Christianity  its  true 
setting  and  completion.  Thus  was  it  Hellenized; 
and  later  it  was  paganized  by  Rome.  The  Fourth 
Gospel,  while  the  least  authentic,  idealizes  the  char¬ 
acter  of  Jesus,  and  is  the  most  precious  and  truest 
thing  in  Christianity.  With  the  truth  of  some  of 
the  facts  recorded  in  this  Gospel,  as  to  whether 
they  were  historical,  or  figurative  and  allegorical 
we  need  not  be  at  all  concerned.  If  we  come  within 
the  glow  of  the  Divine  illumination  that  shines 
brightest  in  this  Gospel,  it  is  all  sufficient. 

The  Bible  contains  the  word  of  God ;  but  to  say 
it  is  the  word  of  God  without  qualification  is  to  dis¬ 
honor  God  and  degrade  our  conception  of  Llim.  It 
contains  a  mixture  of  the  Divine  and  human.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise,  nor  is  it  desirable  that  it 
should  be  otherwise  if  spirituality  is  to  be  developed. 
It  is  a  record  of  the  evolution  of  man  but  especially 


The  Bible 


57 


the  evolution  of  his  conception  of  God,  beginning 
with  Jehovah  a  tribal  deity,  and  incidentally  of  the 
development  of  a  race  from  the  time  of  its  emergence 
from  the  degradation  of  slavery  and  many  of  the 
immoralities  of  the  Mosaic  Laws,  up  until  the  full 
flower  of  the  man  as  he  is  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  a 
conception  of  God  not  as  a  mere  arbitrary  Sov¬ 
ereign,  but  as  God  the  Father,  the  God  and  Father 
of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  Even  the 
New  Testament  reflects  these  different  aspects  of 
truth, — the  Epistles,  more  or  less  human  represent¬ 
ing  the  former  idea  in  some  of  their  theology,  while 
the  simple  truth  of  the  four  gospels  of  Jesus  Christ 
mark  the  transition  from  the  human  to  the  wholly 
Divine,  with  the  original  record  perhaps  entirely 
free  from  interpolation  and  human  perversions. 

The  Supreme  and  essential  purpose  of  the  entire 
Bible  is  the  revelation  of  God  the  Father  through 
Jesus  Christ  who  was  both  God  and  Man,  God  mani¬ 
fest  in  the  flesh,  the  common  denominator,  so  to 
speak,  between  God  the  sum  of  all  things,  and  man 
the  fraction.  As  Jesus  Christ  is  the  one  unique  and 
supreme  manifestation  of  the  Father  who  brings  man 
and  God  into  their  true  relations  to  each  other,  so 
the  Bible  is  the  one  Supreme  Book  among  books. 
But  it  contains  many  things  that  are  not  the  word 
of  God,  that  are  merely  human  and  also  many  things 
that  are  actually  immoral.  As  instance  of  the  latter 
the  law  of  divorce  as  given  by  Moses,  was  denounced 


58  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  \Divorce  Forgery 

as  such  by  Jesus  Christ.  Another  instance  was  the 
law  forbidding"  the  Israelites  to  sell  diseased  meat  to 
an  Israelite,  but  allowing  them  to  sell  the  same  to  a 
stranger  or  a  Cananite.  There  has  been  no  human 
iniquity  that  has  not  at  some  time  or  other  been 
justified,  or  claimed  to  be  justified  by  the  Bible. 
Wars,  cruelties  and  race  hatreds  have  found  their 
buttress  and  support  in  the  Bible.  The  tyrannies 
of  rulers  and  of  governments,  polygamy  and  human 
slavery  have  appealed  to  the  Bible  for  their  justifi¬ 
cation.  The  philosophy  of  Peter  and  Paul,  and  that 
of  Jesus  with  reference  to  the  basic  principles  of  civil 
government  are  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles.  The 
authority  of  the  Bible  has  been  used  by  the  invet¬ 
erate  and  obstinate  foes  of  Science,  and  civilization 
has  suffered  and  been  long  retarded  because  of  this 
deadly  enmity  which  retreats  only  sullenly  and  very 
slowly.  The  Bible  is  not  wholly  inspired,  and  there¬ 
fore  it  must  be  read  with  discrimination  and  com¬ 
mon  sense.  It  is  a  common  saying  that  you  can 
prove  anything  by  the  Bible  and  it  is  not  without 
an  appearance  of  truth.  We  do  not  need  to  listen 
to  the  enemies  of  the  Bible,  but  if  we  take  the  con¬ 
flicting  statements  of  its  friends,  we  find  Christendom 
divided  to-day  into  many  hundreds  of  sects,  nearly 
five  hundred  in  all,  and  many  of  them  still  in  actual 
hostility  to  each  other,  the  great  majority  of  them 
resting  on  an  infallible  Bible,  and  all  within  the 
Catholic  and  Protestant  wings  of  Christianity.  The 


The  Bible 


59 


fault  is  not  in  the  Bible  so  much,  as  not  knowing  how 
to  read  it.  Had  an  angel  brought  the  Bible  down 
from  heaven  the  trouble  would  still  remain,  for  the 
mysteries  of  the  human  mind  would  have  to  be  reck¬ 
oned  with.  Ignorance  and  superstition  both  in  the 
priests  and  the  people  would  immediately  mar  the 
record  however  divine.  If  this  book  were  wholly 
divine  it  would  not  have  served  the  purposes  of 
humanity,  because  it  would  have  been  out  of  reach 
and  incomprehensible.  It  is  both  divine  and  human, 
because  it  was  written  by  men  and  shares  their 
fallibility.  Yet  it  contains  the  sum  of  all  wisdom, 
human  and  divine.  Its  treasures  never  can  be  ex¬ 
hausted,  and  they  will  increase  from  age  to  age. 
The  amazing  miracle  of  Jesus  Christ  is  greater  than 
all  He  did  and  swallows  up  all  the  others.  As  He 
was  God’s  fullest  revelation  of  Himself  to  man 
through  a  man,  we  believe  in  Him  because  that  reve¬ 
lation  was  a  necessity,  the  only  natural  one  and  the 
only  one  possible.  The  Divine  Spirit  is  the  only 
reality  in  the  Universe  and  we  find  it  abundantly  in 
the  Scriptures. 

The  superstition,  however,  that  would  make  the 
Bible  a  mere  fetich  is  to  be  shunned.  If  we  regard  it 
as  partly  human  we  avoid  this  tendency,  and  the 
importance  of  this  fact  impresses  itself  upon  us.  We 
see  that  it  is  not  only  not  inerrant,  but  we  learn  that 
there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be  inerrant  and 
infallible.  In  fact,  it  is  greater  and  more  far- 


60  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  i Divorce  Forgery 

reaching  when  we  consider  it  otherwise  and  it 
appeals  to  human  reason.  The  mistakes  of  Moses 
or  Paul  can  never  impair  the  scriptures.  The 
Higher  Criticism,  whether  constructive  or  destruc¬ 
tive,  only  glorifies  and  illuminates  its  twofold  great¬ 
ness,  the  revelation  of  God  the  Father  through 
Jesus  Christ  His  Son.  No  book  has  ever  been  so 
corrupted,  mishandled,  misread,  perverted  and 
abused,  especially  by  its  friends,  the  priests  and  the 
clergy,  as  has  the  Bible.  It  is  a  proof  of  its  divinity, 
that  it  has  survived  in  spite  of  the  church. 

Moses  was  a  great  legislator  and  also  a  great 
politician,  perhaps  we  should  say  statesman.  Like 
our  human  and  divine  Lincoln,  who,  when  the  win¬ 
ning  of  the  Civil  War  and  the  salvation  of  the  Union 
depended  upon  it,  winked  at  the  admission  of  a  State 
and  the  purchase  of  two  United  States  Senators; 
Moses  winked,  so  to  speak,  at  some  things  he  could 
not  approve  of.  In  vain  did  he  write  in  the  Ten 
Commandments,  “Thou  shalt  not  kill,”  so  long  as  his 
barbarous  horde  of  followers  had  a  common  law  of 
their  own,  the  lex  talionis ,  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth,  which  prevailed  in  Israel ;  and  so 
he  established  as  law,  a  half-way  measure,  the  Cities 
of  Refuge  which  were  designed  to  stop  the  Avenger 
of  Blood  from  killing  a  homicide  unless  he  could 
catch  him  before  he  could  reach  one  of  these  cities, — 
a  considerable  advance  in  civilization.  Moses  did 
the  best  he  could  with  the  material  he  had  to  work 


The  Bible 


61 


with.  And  so,  because  of  their  low  ideas  about 
marriage,  he  temporized  again  and  he  made  the  law 
recorded  in  Deuteronomy  XXIV,  as  follows : 

When  a  man  hath  taken  a  wife  and  married  her, 
and  it  comes  to  pass  that  she  finds  no  favour  in  his 
eyes  because  he  hath  found  some  uncleanness  in  her: 
Then  let  him  write  her  a  bill  of  divorcement,  and 
give  it  in  her  hand  and  send  her  out  of  his  house. 

And  when  she  is  departed  out  of  his  house  she  may 
go  to  be  another  man’s  wife. 

This  law  was  probably  an  advance  on  any  law 
or  custom  that  prevailed  during  400  years  of 
slavery  in  Egypt,  or  upon  the  law  of  the  Cave  man. 
It  wras  evidently  intended  to  benefit  the  woman  and 
improve  her  status  to  allow  her  to  marry,  for  it  gave 
her  no  right  to  divorce  her  husband  for  any  cause. 
It  was  probably  designed  to  help  her  against  pros¬ 
titution.  This  law  did  nothing  for  the  husband, 
and  it  was  nothing  to  him,  but  everything  to  her. 
This  law  enabled  a  man  to  turn  his  wife  out  upon 
the  street  at  any  time,  on  any  cause,  or  upon  any 
pretext,  he  to  be  the  sole  judge  of  either.  Jesus  did 
not  think  the  Bible  infallible  for  He  repudiated  this 
law  wholly  and  absolutely  as  contrary  to  the  law  of 
God,  and  giving  His  specific  and  circumstantial 
reason  therefor,  in  Matthew  XIX-8,  by  which 
He  cut  up  all  divorce  for  every  cause,  by  the  roots. 
He  also  said  specifically  that  this  woman  thus 
divorced  should  not  depart  from  her  husband’s 


62  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  i Divorce  Forgery 

house  and  “go  and  be  another  man’s  wife,”  for  this 
would  be  adultery  in  her  to  marry  another  man,  and 
any  other  man  who  would  marry  her  would  also 
commit  adultery.  Mark  X-ll  and  12,  Luke  XVI- 
18. 

One  very  patent  and  conclusive  reason  why  this 
law  of  Moses  was  not  the  law  of  God  was  the  fact 
that  the  law  was  not  reciprocal,  and  while  a  man 
could  divorce  his  wife  “if  she  burned  his  broth”  or 
on  any  trifling  cause  or  pretext,  or  upon  none,  she 
could  not  divorce  him  for  adultery,  or  any  cruelty, 
or  any  criminal  act.  This  would  be  an  injustice 
inconsistent  with  any  law  of  God,  who  treats  every 
human  being  alike,  and  makes  no  sex  discrimination 
in  His  justice.  But  conclusive  as  this  would  be,  it 
does  not  reach  the  height  of  Jesus’  spiritual  teach¬ 
ings  in  Matthew  XIX,  which  specifically  treats  of 
the  Sacrament  of  Marriage  which  He  says  was  estab¬ 
lished  in  the  beginning  (before  there  were  any  Bibles) 
and  that  all  divorce  for  every  cause  was  inconsistent 
with  the  primal  law  of  marriage. 

When  the  Scripture  violated  the  moral  sense  of 
Jesus  by  its  cruelty  and  by  its  inconsistency  with 
spiritual  truth  as  contained  in  the  Sacrament  of 
Marriage  He  at  once  repudiated  it.  If  the  Scrip¬ 
tures  actually  justified  human  slavery,  we  should 
know  that  in  this  particular  they  were  not  true,  and 
we  would  certainly  repudiate  such  Scripture.  If  the 
Scripture  actually  justified  divorce  on  any  ground 


The  Bible 


63 


whatever,  even  upon  the  ground  of  adultery,  no 
matter  what  the  mere  text  should  contain,  it  should 
be  repudiated  on  moral  grounds,  and  upon  the  rea¬ 
sons  given  by  Jesus  Christ.  But  standing  for  a 
pure  and  undefiled  Scripture,  and  doing  only  justice 
to  the  Bible,  it  will  presently  be  shown  that  the  only 
one  place  in  the  New  Testament  where  a  Scriptural 
ground  of  divorce  is  found  is  an  interpolation  and 
rests  on  a  forgery.  If  it  were  genuine  Scripture  it 
would  still  be  bad  morals,  like  Deut.  XXIV.  But 
when  it  is  bad  morals  and  forged  Scripture  it  is  time 
Protestant  Christianity  should  clean  up  this  hoary 
fraud  and  disinfect  the  Bible. 

The  only  real  infallibility  to  be  found  in  the  Bible 
is  not  in  its  text  but  in  the  spirit  of  truth,  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  Christ  which  pervades  both  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  but  especially  the  Gospels.  There 
can  be  no  infallibility  in  the  text.  This  is  an  impor¬ 
tant  subject.  Let  us  illustrate.  Jesus  said:  “Thou 
art  Peter  and  upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my  church,” 
meaning  the  statement  which  Peter  had  just  made. 
If  this  be  literally  true,  without  regard  to  its  true 
meaning  or  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was 
spoken,  then  it  logically  follows  from  these  words 
and  those  which  immediately  follow,  that  infallibility 
was  conferred  upon  Peter,  to  be  transmitted  by  him 
to  his  supposed  successor,  a  break  in  the  line  of 
which  would  be  fatal  to  the  church,  every  one  of 
which  links  was  to  be  infallible,  a  doctrine  that  was 


64}  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

officially  pronounced  in  1870.  The  Pope  being  the 
church,  both  are  declared  infallible.  Also  that  there 
is  no  salvation  outside  of  the  Catholic  faith.  Also 
that  the  Pope  is  the  rightful  ruler  of  all  lands  and 
that  every  King,  Emperor  and  Ruler,  and  the  Presi¬ 
dent  of  the  United  States  as  well  as  the  Congress  of 
both  Houses  and  every  Legislature  owes  him  obedi¬ 
ence  and  must  think  only  as  he  directs.  The  Spanish 
Inquisition,  the  excommunication  of  millions  of  in¬ 
habitants  in  the  Netherlands  and  the  decree  for  their 
extermination  by  Philip  II  of  Spain  and  the  almost 
complete  execution  of  that  decree  by  the  Duke  of 
Alva,  with  a  thousand  other  atrocities  recorded  in 
history,  both  in  the  Old  World  and  the  New,  were 
justified  by  this  Scripture,  and  by  a  church  claim¬ 
ing  to  be  infallible  and  inerrant.  The  temporal 
power  vested  in  the  Pope  by  this  Scripture  is  the 
pretext  for  the  Vatican  to  be  admitted  into  the 
League  of  Nations,  and  this  power  is  at  the  present, 
and  always  has  been,  an  insidious  or  open  foe  to  the 
liberties  of  mankind.  This  church  has  logically  not 
only  its  place  in  the  League  of  Nations,  but  the 
Pope,  as  the  rightful  Head  of  the  League,  should 
control  it  according  to  his  own  infallible  and  Holy 
Will.  The  Baptist  Church,  however,  or  the  Metho¬ 
dist  and  the  Presbyterian,  are  ineligible. 

All  this  mighty  power,  both  spiritual  and  tem¬ 
poral,  is  thus  committed  to  the  Pope  by  this  Scrip¬ 
ture.  The  Church  and  State  are  one,  and  that  one 


The  Bible 


65 


is  St.  Peter’s  successor.  The  liberties  of  every  man, 
and  even  the  destruction  of  his  soul,  are  in  his  keep¬ 
ing.  Peace  and  war  belong  to  him.  Yet  Jesus 
Christ  has  said,  “My  Kingdom  is  not  of  this  world.” 

Strange  to  say,  the  Protestants  in  the  XVI  Cen¬ 
tury  set  up  the  claims  of  an  infallible  Bible  as 
against  an  infallible  cburch,  something  which  had 
never  been  claimed  before  that  time.  They  attached 
a  sanctity  to  the  text  of  Scripture  which  it  did  not 
deserve  and  which  it  was  to  their  manifest  interest 
to  disclaim.  It  was  this  false  move  which  reallv 
weakened  them  and  strengthened  Rome,  but  this  view 
was  greatly  obscured  by  the  fact  that  the  Reforma¬ 
tion  was  partly  fought  to  enable  them  to  have  a 
Bible  at  all,  or  printed  in  the  vernacular  tongue. 
It  was  this  mistake,  in  part,  that  led  them  to  con¬ 
done  divorce,  because  it  was  Scripture  text.  The 
advantage  was  clearly  to  the  Roman  church,  which 
was  right  in  the  prohibition  of  all  divorce :  and  it 
suited  Rome  to  point  to  this  above  Scripture  as  in¬ 
fallible  and  as  a  rebuke  to  the  m<*nstrous  rebellion 
against  its  authority.  The  entire  structure  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  with  all  its  pretensions  and 
history  for  the  last  1,600  years  stands  upon  these 
few  words  as  its  foundation.  They  are  a  beautiful 
illustration  of  the  fallibility  of  Scripture. 

The  doctrine  of  authority  of  Scripture  has  been 
largely  overworked  and  it  has  had  its  da}\  It  has 
been  very  convenient  when  any  fraud  was  to  be  per- 


66  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  \ Divorce  Forgery 

petrated  on  the  world.  The  only  reason  why  we 
should  ever  yield  to  any  authority,  whether  we  find 
it  in  the  Bible,  the  Church  or  the  decrees  of  a 
Court,  or  in  the  opinions  of  mankind,  is  that  it 
appeals  to  our  sense  of  truth  and  that  our  intelli¬ 
gence  and  our  consciences  approve  of  it.  An 
enlightened  consciousness  is  the  court  of  last  resort ; 
the  Bible  may  be  a  great  help  in  this  enlightenment, 
but  our  consciousness  is  the  test  of  truth — other¬ 
wise  a  host  of  martyrs  have  died  in  vain. 

It  would  not  be  a  wise  thing  to  adopt  the  Bible 
in  the  public  schools.  It  would  inevitably  be  abused 
by  one  interest  or  the  other,  and  it  would  produce 
divisions  and  dissensions  that  would  be  mischievous. 
The  spirit  of  Christianity,  however,  can  be  intro¬ 
duced  in  the  schools  by  the  teachings  of  ethics  and 
good  citizenship,  which  means  unselfishness  and 
altruism.  All  legal  objections  might  be  obviated 
perhaps,  if  some  part  of  the  Scriptures  should  be 
taught  and  memorized  as  good  morals  and  good 
literature.  A  manual  might  be  prepared  avoiding 
everything  that  could  be  possibly  controversial  and 
containing  excerpts  from  the  Scriptures  such  as  the 
19th,  23rd,  90th,  91st  or  other  Psalms;  the  first 
seven  chapters  of  Proverbs ;  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  and  the  13th  of  First  Corinthians;  together 
with  a  few  choice  selections  from  literature  incul¬ 
cating  good  morals  and  patriotism  such  as  Lincoln’s 
Gettysburg  Address. 


The  Bible 


67 


The  fallibility  of  Scripture  may  be  threefold.  It 
may  consist  in  interpolations  which  may  be  actual 
forgeries  as  in  the  case  of  Matthew  XIX-9 ;  or  in 
false  interpretation  as  in  Matthew  XVI-18,  just 
referred  to, — (and  by  the  way,  this  Scripture  does 
not  appear  in  Mark,  which  is  the  oldest  gospel,  or 
in  Luke,  or  in  John)  ;  or  thirdly  in  false  doctrines. 
When  Paul  says  that :  “By  one  man  sin  entered  into 
the  world,”  he  was  certainly  mistaken,  and  he  would 
thus  lay  the  foundation  for  his  structure  of  the¬ 
ology.  He  did  not  mean  the  typical  man,  for  he 
refers  to  one  man,  meaning  Adam,  and  had  in  mind 
the  story  of  the  temptation  of  Eve  and  the  supposed 
Fall  of  man  through  Adam.  If  he  had  meant  man 
generally,  it  would  have  been  unobjectionable,  and 
he  would  not  have  mentioned  one  man,  nor  would 
it  have  served  his  purpose  to  speak  of  anything  but 
one  man.  He  thus  commits  himself  to  the  idea  of 
a  fiat  creation  of  a  first  pair  of  human  beings, 
which  in  itself  would  be  a  harmless  misstatement  of 
a  scientific  fact.  But  he  also  commits  a  theological 
error.  Sin  never  came  into  the  world  by  one  man, 
but  every  man  who  has  the  beginnings  of,  or  de¬ 
veloped,  a  spiritual  consciousness  has  brought  his 
share.  The  Cave  man  or  the  bushman  of  Australia 
has  never  known  sin,  for  he  lacks  the  capacity  to 
know  what  sin  is.  Paul  himself  says:  “For  by  the 
law  is  the  knowledge  of  sin”;  and  “For  where  no  law 
is  there  is  no  transgression.”  The  animal  man  has 


68  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  i Divorce  Forgery 

no  sin  until  a  moral  and  spiritual  consciousness  is 
developed,  which  comes  slowly.  Sin  may  be  defined 
to  be  the  result  of  the  conflict  between  the  animal 
and  the  spiritual  nature,  where  the  animal  in  the 
man  overcomes  his  spiritual  promptings,  and  where 
the  spiritual  nature  consciously  yields  to  the  animal 
man.  This  conflict  between  the  animal  and  the 
divine  nature  in  man  is  graphically  described  by 
Paul  in  Romans,  seventh  chapter.  The  first 
spiritual  statement  of  truth  in  the  Bible  is,  that  God 
made  man  in  His  own  image  and  likeness.  But  He 
also  made  him  an  animal  with  the  potentiality  of 
becoming  Divine  when  his  spiritual  consciousness  is 
awakened  and  the  “Christ  be  formed  within”  him. 

There  never  was  a  fall  of  man  for  the  reason  that 
there  never  was  a  time  when  man  was  not  more  or 
less  of  an  animal. 

In  our  present  stage  of  existence  we  are  obliged 
to  have  animal  bodies  and  animal  passions,  and  the 
entire  purpose  of  growth  of  Christian  character  is 
not  to  destroy  that  which  God  has  given  us,  but  to 
put  the  body  and  all  evil  passions  under  bonds,  and 
keep  them  under  the  subjection  of  the  Spirit.  The 
body  is  the  temple  wherein  the  Holy  Spirit  may 
dwell,  and  should  be  kept  holy  and  undefiled.  The 
body  can  be  subject  to  the  Holy  Spirit;  but  as  Paul 
says,  “The  carnal  mind  is  enmity  against  God,  it  is 
not  subject  to  the  law  of  God  neither  indeed  can  be.” 
There  is  a  great  difference. 


The  Bible 


69 


The  doctrine  of  election  is  an  excrescence  upon 
Christianity,  as  being  entirely  useless  and  unneces¬ 
sary,  and  also  foreign  to  Christianity,  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  pagianistic.  It  is  twofold  paganism; 
firstly,  that  it  is  capricious,  and  secondly,  in  its 
cruelty  by  which  it  damns  the  great  majority  of 
mankind  to  eternal  destruction  and  torment.  So 
also,  as  the  end  and  aim  of  religion,  the  idea  of  re¬ 
wards  and  punishments.  True  Christianity  would 
treat  these  two  things  as  incidental  to  something 
greater  and  more  worthy.  “The  law  of  the  Lord  is 
perfect,  converting  the  soul.  .  .  .  Moreover  by 
them  is  thy  servant  warned  and  in  keeping  of  them 
is  great  reward,”  but  the  conversion  of  the  soul  is 
its  own  reward.  Some  religion  is  only  a  higher  kind 
of  selfishness.  It  is  said  by  Gibbon  that  when  Chris¬ 
tianity  began  to  be  an  influence  in  Rome,  the  old 
patrician  and  altruistic  idea  of  service  to  the  State 
fell  into  desuetude  because  every  Christian  was  self¬ 
ishly  thinking  of  nothing  but  saving  his  own  soul. 
It  is  not  the  mission  of  Christianity  to  send  people 
to  Heaven  as  its  only  aim,  but  far  better,  to  form 
and  develop  character  after  the  pattern  and  spirit 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  to  make  noble  and  true  men  and 
women.  Furthermore,  the  idea  of  salvation  by  faith 
alone,  or  what  is  called  justification  by  faith,  when 
carried  to  an  extreme  is  also  entirely  paganistic. 
Belief  in  a  belief  never  saved  anybody ;  there  must 
be  something  and  much  besides.  There  must  not 


70  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

only  be  a  certain  faith,  but  there  must  be  the  patient 
growth  and  development  of  character  to  express  that 
faith.  There  is  a  certain  side  of  all  orthodoxy  that 
is  true,  because  it  is  a  perversion  of  truth  itself ;  but 
extreme  orthodoxy  verges  on  paganistic  ideas.  We 
see  this  in  its  extreme  and  material  views  of  heaven 
and  hell;  a  set  judgment  day;  in  certain  phases  of 
the  Atonement  which  dishonor  God,  by  which  He  has 
to  be  appeased  by  a  blood  sacrifice.  That  is  not  a 
Christian  idea,  but  distinctly  Jewish.  When  Paul 
says :  “Without  the  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no 
remission  of  sin,”  he  gives  us  an  extreme  view  in 
poetical  form,  but  it  is  not  a  fact,  and  the  true 
Atonement  of  Jesus  Christ  will  bear  no  such  con¬ 
struction.  Extreme  orthodoxy  is  for  the  ignorant 
and  for  people  who  do  not  think.  They  trust  in 
words  and  phrases  and  miss  the  higher  spirit  of 
truth. 

Christianity  has  had  to  carry  a  heavy  load  of 
things  which  do  not  belong  to  it  and  degrade  it 
because  we  have  not  known  how  to  read  Scripture 
properly.  The  church  has  relegated  to  destruction 
the  vast  majority  of  mankind;  people  of  different 
race  or  color;  people  of  other  churches  than  our 
own;  people  who  differ  from  us  in  religious  beliefs; 
and  people  who  were  not  elected  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world.  The  comminitary  psalms  are  respon¬ 
sible  for  much  of  this,  and  they  are  not  fit  to  be 
read  in  a  Christian  church.  The  New  Testament  is 


The  Bible 


71 


also  responsible  in  part,  but  is  much  misunderstood. 
It  is  grotesque  to  see  kindly  Christian  people  taking 
a  smug  satisfaction  in  the  fate  of  the  wicked,  which 
they  speak  of  so  glibly,  when  the  godly  and  the  elect 
are  to  meet  Jesus  Christ  “in  the  air”  at  His  second 
coming. 

The  so-called  heathen  people  have  nothing  in  their 
history  or  their  literature  in  regard  to  a  future  state 
that  is  quite  so  barbaric  as  that  which  is  still 
preached  from  Christian  pulpits,  and  which  only  a 
generation  ago  was  very  common. 

The  heathen  poet  Virgil  in  his  sixth  ^Eneid  is 
much  more  Christian  and  certainly  much  more 
philosophic  when  he  describes  the  purgative  pro¬ 
cesses  which  the  soul  undergoes ;  the  passage  of  the 
waters  of  Lethe  and  the  final  wait  in  the  Elysian 
fields  preparatory  to  the  continuity  of  life  by  re¬ 
birth  ;  a  process  of  a  thousand  years ;  which  may  be 
repeated  thousands  of  times.  This  is  of  course  all 
speculation,  so  far  as  methods  of  these  processes 
go ;  but  there  is  no  speculation  as  to  the  fact  of  a 
process,  and  we  are  at  liberty  to  use  our  reason  as 
to  the  best  guess.  The  difference  between  souls  at 
birth  can  only  be  thus  accounted  for.  It  is  the 
process  of  the  realization  of  David’s  prayer:  “The 
Lord  will  perfect  that  which  concemeth  me:  Thy 
mercy,  O  Lord,  endureth  forever;  forsake  not  the 
work  of  thine  own  hands.” 

It  is  inconceivable  that  God  can  ever  damn  any- 


72  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  (Divorce  (Forgery 

thing  that  He  has  created,  unless  we  ascribe  to  Him 
a  moral  character  entirely  inferior  to  our  own. 
Nothing  ever  was,  or  ever  can  be  finally  lost,  not 
even  force  or  energy,  much  less  a  soul.  We  punish 
ourselves,  or  God  punishes  us  and  we  may  lose  our¬ 
selves  for  a  time,  but  God  loses  us  never.  We  can¬ 
not  escape  from  Him,  and  He  is  always  with  us. 
“If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven  Thou  art  there;  if  I 
make  my  bed  in  hell  behold  Thou  art  there.  If  I 
take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and  dwell  in  the  utter¬ 
most  parts  of  the  sea,  even  there  shall  Thy  hand 
lead  me,  and  Thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me.”  The 
final  loss  or  the  final  destruction  of  the  soul  is  an 
unchristian  doctrine.  The  immortality  of  the  soul 
is  a  thoroughly  Christian  teaching.  As  to  the  con¬ 
ditions  of  the  future  existence  of  the  soul  the  Bible 
teaches  us  nothing  with  any  certainty,  and  nobody 
knows  anything  about  it.  No  one  has  ever  come 
from  the  world  of  the  dead  to  tell  us  anything,  and 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  no  one  ever  will, 
or  that  it  would  not  be  an  injury  to  us  if  he  did. 
But  believing  in  the  continuity  of  existence  it  is 
reasonable  to  conjecture  what  the  stages  of  another 
life  may  be  when  we  are  out  of  this  body,  and  what 
are  the  means  and  methods  by  which  our  spiritual 
growth  and  development  shall  be  accomplished ;  for 
no  man  is  finished  in  moral  or  spiritual  growth  at 
his  death ;  it  is  at  best  only  a  guess,  but  the  best 
guess  is  that  the  evolution  of  a  soul  can  only  be 


The  Bible 


73 


secured  through  Karma  (there  is  no  other  English 
word  that  means  exactly  the  same) — and  reincarna¬ 
tion. 

Karma  is  simply  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  If 
we  make  good  Karma  we  are  laying  up  store  for  a 
blessed  future  life;  if  bad  Karma  we  must  pay  a 
penalty  here  or  hereafter,  and  there  is  no  escape, 
to  the  uttermost  farthing.  Reincarnation  is  simply 
rebirth  in  a  body  in  order  to  give  the  soul  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  development  by  experience.  What  other 
rational  guess  is  left  to  us  ?  This  is  most  wholesome 
Christian  doctrine,  and  should  be  preached  in  every 
pulpit  as  the  only  one  possible  thing  that  is  rational. 
It  is  not  only  good  sense,  but  it  is  in  accord  with  the 
teachings  of  Paul  and  Jesus  Christ ;  and  not  only 
with  the  spirit  but  the  letter  of  Scripture.  Paul 
says,  “Be  not  deceived,  for  God  is  not  mocked:  for 
whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap. 
If  he  shall  sow  to  the  flesh  he  will  of  the  flesh  reap 
corruption.  If  he  shall  sow  to  the  spirit  he  will  of 
the  spirit  reap  life  everlasting.”  But  the  question 
arises,  if  a  man  sows  to  the  flesh  all  his  life  and  is 
material  and  worldly,  but  does  not  abuse  his  body, 
and  dies  full  of  honors  and  success,  when  and  where 
is  he  to  reap  corruption  of  the  flesh?  This  text 
necessarily  implies  Karma  and  reincarnation  to  make 
it  intelligible.  Jesus  also  teaches  the  law  of  Karma 
in  Matthew  V-25.  This  text  has  nothing  to  do  with 
civil  magistrates,  and  the  word  adversary,  which  is 


74  Flie  Bible  and  Scriptural  (Divorce  Forgery 

correctly  translated  from  the  Greek  means  the  in¬ 
ward  witness,  the  accuser,  the  conscience.  Ortho¬ 
doxy  has  no  use  whatever  for  this  Scripture  and 
gives  it  a  wide  birth,  but  the  law  of  Karma  could  not 
be  more  concisely  stated.  Jesus  also  teaches  rein¬ 
carnation  in  the  rebirth  of  Elijah  as  John  the  Bap¬ 
tist.  The  last  chapter  of  Malachi  refers  to  the  com¬ 
ing  again  of  Elijah.  He  was  reborn  as  John  about 
one  thousand  years  later.  Jesus  said  John  was  actu- 
ally  Elijah,  Matthew  XVII-12.  The  angel  prophe¬ 
sied  before  his  birth  that  John  should  come  in  the 
spirit  and  power  of  Elijah,  and  well  he  might,  for 
he  was  Elijah,  and  after  he  had  been  beheaded,  Jesus 
stated  the  fact.  John  was  the  spitten  image  of 
Elijah  in  mind  and  body,  habits  and  character. 

Reincarnation  opens  the  question  as  to  whether 
there  is  a  purgatorial  state  for  every  soul  after 
death.  There  is  sufficient  Scripture  to  warrant  the 
statement  that  Jesus  descended  into  purgatory,  or 
into  hell  as  the  Apostles’  Creed  states,  to  preach  to 
the  spirits  that  were  in  prison.  If  there  was  no 
Scripture  for  it,  it  would  be  a  very  reasonable 
assumption  that  there  was  such  a  state,  call  it  what 
you  please,  as  a  part  of  the  process  of  the  develop¬ 
ment  and  discipline  of  a  soul  in  its  continuity  of 
existence,  or  in  other  words  of  its  immortality.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church  has  retained  this  very  sen¬ 
sible  doctrine,  and  because  she  has  abused  it  and 
perverted  it  is  no  reason  why  Protestants  should 


The  Bible 


75 


deny  it.  The  denial  of  it  is  far  less  reasonable  than 
the  assertion  of  it,  if  neither  can  be  proven.  Hades 
contains  both  hell  and  paradise,  different  stages  or 
planes  of  existence  and  every  soul  passes  through 
and  beyond  one  or  both  of  them  to  more  spiritual 
stages  of  existence  according  to  its  advancement  and 
later  the  soul  seeks  rebirth  as  a  necessary  means  of 
progress  and  experience  in  a  physical  body.  Jesus 
has  said  enough  on  several  occasions  to  warrant 
these  conjectures,  and  at  all  events  they  are  per¬ 
fectly  consistent  with  a  true  Christianity. 

The  personality  of  Paul  is  so  intimately  connected 
with  Christianity  of  the  First  Century,  and  his  per¬ 
sonal  opinions  have  been  so  woven  into  its  texture 
and  fabric  that  it  has  often  happened  that  Paul 
himself  and  his  theology  has  bulked  larger  than 
Jesus  or  the  simple  teachings  of  the  gospel.  Great 
as  he  was,  one  of  the  great  forces  in  the  world,  he 
had  his  defects  and  his  limitations.  His  conversion 
and  his  zeal  has  largely  changed  the  world,  but  his 
conversion  did  not  materially  influence  his  nation¬ 
ality,  his  intellect  nor  his  temperament.  A  man 
that  could  lynch  Christians  was  bound  to  be  a 
zealous  Christian,  and  such  an  ardency  of  disposi¬ 
tion  would  inevitably  color  much  of  his  theology  and 
his  intellectual  processes.  His  logic  was  very  won¬ 
derful  even  when  based  on  false  premises,  and  he 
took  unwarranted  liberty  in  misusing  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment.  He  seemed  to  monopolize  into  his  own  per- 


76  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  i Divorce  Forgery 

sonality  the  greatness  of  his  work,  and  was  probably 
not  very  easy  to  get  along  with.  But  his  difficulty 
with  Peter  which  for  a  time  threatened  to  perma¬ 
nently  disrupt  Christianity  was  greatly  to  his 
credit,  and  to  his  great  glory,  for  he  thus  became 
the  great  apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  which  in  that  age 
of  the  world  was  of  tremendous  significance;  and 
contrary  to  his  narrowness  in  some  things,  showed  a 
wonderful  breadth  of  mind  and  character.  He  had 
the  defects  of  his  qualities  and  his  mistakes  were 
natural.  Paul’s  personal  belief  in  preterition  should 
not  be  mistaken  for  the  true  spirit  of  the  gospel. 
When  I  was  a  boy,  I  was  interested  in  the  character 
of  Esau,  and  never  thought  he  had  a  fair  show  or  a 
square  deal,  either  at  the  hands  of  his  parents,  to 
say  nothing  of  Jacob,  or  of  Paul.  Great  as  were 
the  mistakes  of  this  boy  in  failing  to  realize  the  value 
of  his  spiritual  privileges,  a  mistake  most  of  us  make 
at  times,  he  surely  was  not  worthy  of  eternal  damna¬ 
tion,  and  of  being  made  an  awful  example  for  all 
time,  especially  when  we  remember  how  he  was  done 
up  by  his  family.  It  is  true  that  he  would  have 
killed  Jacob  if  he  could  have  caught  him;  but  his 
anger  soon  died  away.  His  disposition  instead  of 
being  soured  was  mellowed  by  amiability  and  a  true 
brotherly  affection  toward  Jacob,  a  test  that  few 
Christian  people  could  have  borne  successfully. 
Jacob  on  the  other  hand  never  trusted  Esau,  because 
he  had  wronged  him,  and  he  judged  Esau  wholly  by 


The  Bible 


77 


himself.  I  know  of  no  other  instance  in  Scripture 
or  in  history  which  furnishes  us  such  an  example 
of  a  Christian  gentleman.  I  emphasize  the  word 
gentleman  in  his  case  and  also  the  word  Christian, 
meaning  Christian  conduct,  for  these  words  have  a 
close  identity  in  spite  of  theology.  A  true  gentle¬ 
man  is  hardly  discernible  from  a  true  Christian  by 
the  naked  eye. 

We  can  very  easily  forgive  Paul  considering  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  Jew,  and  the  kind  of  a  man  he 
was,  for  lynching  Christians ;  but  how  can  we  for¬ 
give  him  for  damning  Esau,  and  making  him  the  far¬ 
fetched  example  of  non-election  upon  the  mistaken 
idea  that  God  had  damned  him?  for  this  is  what 
Paul’s  argument  means,  if  it  means  anything  at  all. 
Poor  Esau !  to  be  robbed  of  his  birthright  and  even 
of  a  blessing,  and  then  sent  to  hell  and  pilloried  for 
all  time  by  Paul  to  prove  his  doctrine  of  election. 
The  book  of  Hebrews,  which  was  written  by  an  un¬ 
known  writer,  and  for  the  probable  purpose  of  heal¬ 
ing  the  rupture  in  the  church  between  Peter  and 
Paul,  has  a  passage  to  the  effect  that  Esau  found 
no  place  of  repentance  though  he  sought  it  carefully 
with  tears,  and  this  text  has  often  been  used  to 
certify  the  fact  that  Esau’s  soul  was  lost,  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  God  “hated”  him.  But  this 
writer  only  means  that  Esau’s  pitiful  appeal  to  his 
father  was  denied  because  the  birthright  was  beyond 
recall  and  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  loss  of  his 


78  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  JJivorce  Forgery 

soul.  And  so,  if  Esau’s  soul  was  lost,  the  responsi¬ 
bility  seems  to  rest,  certainly  not  on  God,  or  not 
on  Malachi,  although  his  language  was  hyperbole, 
and  entirely  too  florid;  and  not  upon  the  writer  of 
Hebrews,  but  upon  Paul  alone,  and  in  view  of  his 
own  history  he  might  have  given  Esau  the  benefit  of 
a  doubt. 

And  it  was  always  a  bad  habit  of  Paul  to  misread 
and  intensify  Old  Testament  literature  because  of 
the  intensity  of  his  own  make-up.  Still,  we  must  not 
hold  this  against  Paul,  even  if  he  had  a  habit  of 
getting  ahead  of  himself  in  some  things,  for,  did  he 
not  write  the  13th  Chapter  of  First  Corinthians? 

The  pious  condemnation  of  the  great  majority  of 
the  human  race,  the  dooming  to  eternal  destruction 
of  people  as  good  as  ourselves  though  differing  in 
creed,  caste  or  color;  the  idea  of  eternal  torture  of 
the  wicked  or  even  of  their  annihilation;  the  hatred 
of  individual  criminals,  the  failure  to  pity  those  who 
need  punishment  both  for  themselves  and  as  deter¬ 
rent  examples,  is  all  wrong  and  un-Christian  whether 
justified  by  the  Bible  or  not. 

Jesus  never  went  out  of  His  way  to  make  any 
special  condemnation  of  polygamy,  intemperance  or 
human  slavery ;  yet  in  His  name  and  in  His  spirit 
these  things  have  largely  disappeared  from  the 
world.  But  is  it  not  a  very  significant  fact  that  He 
did  go  out  of  His  way  or  rather  took  express  occa¬ 
sion  to  condemn  divorce,  and  all  divorce,  expressly 


The  Bible 


79 


in  words  and  by  necessary  implication  in  emphasiz¬ 
ing  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage,  Mark  X-&-1& ;  and 
on  another  occasion  He  inveighed  against  the  direful 
effect  of  divorce  upon  an  innocent  woman  which  He 
said  would  cause  her  to  commit  adultery.  Matthew 
V-32. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  a  critical  investigation  of 
the  particular  Scripture  which  is  represented  as  con¬ 
taining  a  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce,  and  the 
examination  of  everything  on  that  subject  contained 
in  the  New  Testament. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  BOOK  OF  MARK 

This  is  the  oldest  Gospel.  The  following1  is  the 
only  Scripture  in  this  Book  which  relates  to  mar¬ 
riage  and  divorce.  It  contains  the  Sacrament  of 
Marriage.  It  is  worthy  of  a  chapter  by  itself  for 
the  reason  that  it  is  a  negation  of  any  ground  of 
divorce,  and  it  reads  as  follows : 

Chapter  X 

2  And  the  Pharisees  came  to  him  and  asked  him, 
Is  it  lawful  for  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife?  tempting 
him. 

3  And  he  answered  and  said  unto  them,  What  did 
Moses  command  you? 

4  And  they  said,  Moses  suffered  to  write  a  bill  of 
divorcement,  and  to  put  her  away. 

5  And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  them,  For 
the  hardness  of  your  heart  he  wrote  you  this  precept. 

6  But  from  the  beginning  of  the  creation  God 
made  them  male  and  female. 

7  For  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and 
mother  and  cleave  to  his  wife : 

8  And  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh;  so  then  they 
are  no  more  twain,  but  one  flesh. 

80 


The  Booh  of  Mark 


81 


9  What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together,  let 
not  man  put  asunder. 

10  And  in  the  house  his  disciples  asked  him  again 
of  the  same  matter. 

11  And  he  said  unto  them,  Whosoever  shall  put 
away  his  wife,  and  marry  another,  committeth  adul¬ 
tery  against  her. 

IS  And  if  a  woman  shall  put  away  her  husband, 
and  be  married  to  another,  she  committeth  adultery. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  BOOK  OF  LUKE 

The  only  passage  in  this  Book  that  treats  of  di¬ 
vorce  is  found  in  Luke  XVI-18,  which  reads  as 
follows : 

18  Whosoever  putteth  away  his  wife  and  marrieth 
another  committeth  adultery;  and  whosoever  mar¬ 
rieth  her  that  is  put  away  from  her  husband  com¬ 
mitteth  adultery. 

This  Scripture  also  calls  for  a  separate  chapter. 
Like  the  Book  of  Mark  it  is  most  eloquent  in  its 
silence,  and  most  impressive  in  its  dearth  of  a  Scrip¬ 
tural  ground  of  divorce. 

The  way  now  is  clear  to  focus  our  attention  on 
Matthew  XIX-9,  which  is  forged  Scripture,  and 
the  only  place  in  the  New  Testament  where  the  so- 
called  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce  is  to  be  found, 
but  first  the  meaning  of  Matthew  V-32,  which  has 
been  misunderstood,  will  be  made  clear  in  the  follow¬ 
ing  chapter. 


CHAPTER  V 


MATTHEW  V,  31-32 

In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  appears  the  follow¬ 
ing: 

31  It  hath  been  said,  Whosoever  shall  put  away 
his  wife,  let  him  give  her  a  bill  of  divorcement. 

32  But  I  say  unto  you,  that  whosoever  shall  put 
away  his  wife,  saving  for  the  cause  of  fornication, 
causeth  her  to  commit  adultery ;  and  whosoever  shall 
marry  her  that  is  divorced  committeth  adultery. 

This  is  one  of  the  two  passages  of  Scripture 
claimed  to  establish  the  Scriptural  ground  of  di¬ 
vorce,  which  is  adultery.  Neither  one  will  support 
that  claim;  the  one  just  quoted  will  not,  because  it 
is  a  condemnation  of  divorce,  instead  of  an 
approval;  and  the  other  because  it  is  a  forgery — * 
and  both  of  these  statements  can  easily  be  estab¬ 
lished  as  true,  as  will  presently  appear  in  the  present 
and  in  the  following  chapter.  The  above  is  genuine 
Scripture,  the  other  in  Matthew  XIX  is  not. 

This  Scripture  is  correctly  translated,  as  well  as 
genuine.  It  is  very  confusingly  expressed,  and  is 

83 


84  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

a  veritable  Chinese  puzzle.  On  its  first  serious  read¬ 
ing  it  seems  to  be  nonsense;  for  how  can  a  man’s 
putting  away  his  wife  cause  her  to  commit  adultery? 
But  knowing  that  Jesus  never  talked  nonsense,  we 
try  again  and  again  to  unravel  its  obscurity.  After 
reading  it  scores  of  times,  with  the  words,  “saving 
for  the  cause  of  fornication,”  buzzing  in  our  ears  like 
a  Mother  Goose  jingle,  we  either  give  it  up  or  con¬ 
clude  that  it  has  something  to  do  with  divorce,  al¬ 
though  it  does  not  say  that  a  man  has  a  right  to 
divorce  his  wife  for  adultery.  Probably  not  one  per¬ 
son  in  ten  thousand  ever  got  so  far  as  to  find  out 
that  there  was  any  puzzle  in  it. 

Out  of  a  hundred  Protestant  ministers  probably 
one  hundred  read  this  passage  as  they  have  always 
read  it  as  boys,  or  as  they  have  been  taught  to  read 
it  by  their  instructors,  precisely  as  a  parrot  speaks 
his  words,  and  would  say  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
these  words  mean  a  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce, 
though  they  say  nothing  of  the  kind.  They  would 
say:  Are  not  these  words,  “saving  for  the  cause  of 
fornication,”  sufficient  proof,  and  is  not  that  the 
end  of  the  matter?  And  thereupon,  like  the  clam 
when  disturbed,  they  close  their  shells,  and  approve 
of  a  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce.  The  writer  con¬ 
fesses  that  he  himself  was  very  stupid  in  the  matter, 
and  after  determining  to  make  an  honest  and 
thorough  investigation  of  the  whole  subject  it  was 


Matthew  V ,  31-32  85 

months  before  the  real  meaning  of  this  confusing 
Scripture  dawned  upon  him. 

Now  let  us  investigate  this  passage  together.  To 
do  so  we  must  know  why  this  Scripture  was  spoken, 
what  were  its  connections,  and  what  was  in  the  mind 
of  Jesus  at  the  time.  An  examination  of  Matthew  V 
will  show  that  in  this  same  connection  Jesus  was 
repudiating  a  lot  of  things  that  the  law  of  Moses 
sanctioned.  Divorce  was  one  of  them.  In  this  case 
He  was  not  speaking  of  divorce  itself,  but  only  of 
the  effect  of  divorce  upon  a  woman,  and  that  an 
innocent  woman.  But  we  must  understand  what  was 
in  the  mind  of  Jesus  if  we  would  understand  His 
words. 

In  the  first  place,  in  verse  31  He  refers  to  Deu¬ 
teronomy  XXIV. 

In  the  next  He  distinctly  repudiates  that  law  of 
Moses  by  the  use  of  the  word  “But”  in  verse  32,  and 
in  Matthew  XIX-8  He  states  it  more  fully  and  em¬ 
phatically,  that  the  law  of  Moses  was  not  the  law 
of  God  in  respect  to  divorce,  giving  His  detailed 
and  specific  reasons  for  saying  so,  and  cutting  up 
all  divorce  of  every  kind  by  the  roots. 

In  the  next  place,  after  repudiating  the  law  of 
Moses  He  begins  by  referring  to  the  many  but 
switches  off  to  a  statement  about  a  woman ,  and  the 
effect  that  divorce  will  have  upon  her.  He  is  no 
longer  concerned  about  divorce  generally  and  dis- 


86  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

misses  it  to  consider  the  case  of  a  woman,  and  an 
innocent  woman,  not  one  guilty  of  fornication,  but 
a  woman  whose  only  fault  was  that  perhaps  she  had 
burnt  her  husband’s  broth.  If  he  divorced  such  a 
woman,  as  he  had  the  right  to  do  under  the  law  of 
Moses,  he  “causeth  her  to  commit  adultery.”  This 
would  be  because  he  turned  her  out  of  his  house  and 
exposed  her  either  to  become  a  prostitute  in  order 
to  make  her  living,  or  thereby  causing  her  to  find 
another  husband,  which  the  law  of  Moses  allowed 
her  to  do,  but  which  Jesus  said  the  law  of  God  for¬ 
bade,  as  it  was  adultery  to  do  so,  both  in  her  and 
the  man  who  would  marry  her  after  she  was  di¬ 
vorced. 

Now  it  is  evident  that  Jesus  did  not  have  in  mind, 
and  made  no  statement  whatever  concerning  a  guilty 
woman  who  had  committed  fornication,  for  if  He 
did,  her  husband  divorcing  her  would  not  cause  her 
to  commit  adultery.  If  she  was  already  an  adul- 
tress,  divorcing  her  would  not  make  her  one.  In 
this  case  her  husband  would  not  cause  her  to  com¬ 
mit  adultery.  It  was  only  the  innocent  woman  He 
was  pleading  for  against  a  barbarous  law  that  He 
condemned,  and  the  divorce  of  such  a  woman  would 
drive  her  to  another  marriage  or  to  prostitution. 

How  can  anybody  maintain  that  this  passage  of 
Scripture  says  that  a  man  may  divorce  a  guilty 
woman,  when  He  was  not  talking  about  a  guilty 
woman;  and  we  have  seen  that  this  passage  is  mere 


Matthew  V ,  31-3 2 


87 


nonsense  if  a  guilty  woman  was  meant.  We  know 
that  Jesus  never  talked  nonsense. 

If  divorce  would  have  such  an  effect  upon  a 
woman,  that  it  would  cause  her  to  commit  adultery, 
whether  innocent  or  guilty,  who  is  going  to  claim 
that  Jesus  favored  or  approved  of  such  wickedness? 
Remember  it  is  the  divorce  that  causeth  the  adultery. 
Does  Jesus  approve  of  divorce  that  causeth  adul¬ 
tery  ? 

Even  though  it  might  be  claimed  that  Jesus  was 
talking  about  a  guilty  woman  who  had  committed 
fornication  (which  is  nonsense),  it  will  hardly  be 
claimed  that  He  approved  of  her  husband’s  divorc¬ 
ing  her,  if  such  divorce  causeth  her  to  commit  adul¬ 
tery,  and  is  Jesus  to  be  held  responsible  for  such  a 

divorce  producing  such  effects? 

To  say  that  this  Scripture  contains  any  Scrip¬ 
tural  ground  of  divorce  for  adultery  even  by  the 
remotest  implication  is  to  torture  it  all  out  of  shape 
and  read  into  it  with  a  jingle  of  words,  what  is  not 
there.  It  is  good  Scripture,  spoken  for  a  holy  and 
beneficent  purpose  by  One  who  did  not  think  the 
Bible  infallible.  It  was  only  a  humane  plea  and  a 
protest.  The  clergy  and  the  church  have  made  this 
passage  serve  a  bad  cause  and  vicious  public  morals. 

This  passage  of  Matthew  V-32,  may  be  para¬ 
phrased  to  give  a  clear  idea  of  its  meaning  as  fol¬ 
lows  : 

“Whosoever  shall  put  away  his  wife,  unless  she  is 


88  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

already  an  adultressy  causeth  her  to  commit  adul¬ 
tery.”  It  will  be  admitted  that  the  words,  “unless 
she  is  already  an  adultress,”  and  “saving  for  the 
cause  of  fornication,”  are  exact  equivalents  and 
mean  precisely  the  same  thing,  except  that  the  for¬ 
mer  makes  the  meaning  a  little  more  plain.  It  will 
then  be  seen  that  the  words,  “saving  for  the  cause 
of  fornication,”  are  merely  used  as  a  description  of 
the  kind  of  woman,  one  being  guilty  and  the  other 
innocent.  These  words  have  a  meaning  in  Matthew 
V-32,  which  they  do  not  have  in  Matthew  XIX-9, 
although  they^  are  almost  the  same.  In  one  case  they 
are  descriptive  of  a  woman,  in  the  other  an  intended 
exception  to  divorce.  In  this  one  case  they  are 
honest  and  in  the  other  not  so,  as  we  will  show  pres¬ 
ently. 

This  passage  of  Matthew  V,  31-32,  may  be  more 
freely  paraphrased  as  follows  in  the  supposed  words 
of  Jesus: 

I  am  aware  that  you  have  a  law  of  Moses  which 
allows  a  man  to  put  away  his  wife  if  she  finds  no 
favor  in  his  eyes  because  he  hath  found  some  un¬ 
cleanness  in  her;  and  he  may  simply  give  her  a  writ¬ 
ing  of  divorcement  and  send  her  away,  and  she  may 
marry  again  with  another  man,  although  she  may 
not  put  away  her  husband  for  any  cause.  This  has 
been  the  law  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Israel  for  about 
1,500  years.  It  is  a  hard  and  cruel  law,  but  it  is 
the  law  of  the  land  and  I  have  no  power  to  change 
it.  The  word  uncleanness  has  been  variously  inter- 


Matthew  V ,  31-32 


89 


preted.  The  School  of  Shammai  holds  that  the  word 
means,  or  should  mean,  some  very  grave  fault  or 
vice ;  while  the  School  of  Hillel  holds  that  a  man 
may  divorce  his  wife  for  any  cause  however  small, 
as  for  instance,  should  she  “burn  his  broth.”  In 
either  case  this  is  not  and  never  was  the  law  of  God. 
But  I  say  unto  you,  if  you  must  divorce  your  wives 
under  this  unholy  law,  which  is  all  wrong,  I  pray  you, 
do  not  divorce  an  innocent  woman ;  for  if  you  do,  you 
turn  her  out  upon  the  street  to  make  a  living  as  she 
can,  and  you  will  drive  her  to  become  the  wife  of 
another  man  by  which  they  will  both  become  adul¬ 
terers  in  spite  of  what  the  law  of  Moses  allows,  or 
she  will  be  driven  to  prostitution,  and  in  either  case 
you  will  cause  her  to  commit  adultery. 

Jesus  was  always  kind  and  tender  with  women, 
and  this  Scripture  was  nothing  more  or  less  than 
a  humane  plea.  This  is  the  only  construction  that 
this  passage  will  allow,  or  by  which  it  can  be  made 
intelligible. 

And  what  is  to  be  thought  of  the  brains  and  the 
spiritual  discernment  that  would  see  in  this  Scrip¬ 
ture  any  justification  for  divorce  on  the  ground  of 
adultery,  when  it  contains  in  express  words  the 
reprobation  of  the  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce  in 
the  Old  Testament,  which  is  the  law  of  Moses,  and 
also  a  reprobation  of  the  thing  that  causes  adultery  P 
Yet  sermons  in  Christian  pulpits  have  actually 
been  preached  from  Matthew  V-32,  approving  and 
justifying  divorce  for  adultery.  A  few  years  ago  a 


90  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

very  prominent  minister  preached  from  this  passage, 
and  the  character  of  the  whole  amazing  performance 
may  be  judged  by  the  opening  sentence  of  his  printed 
sermon,  which  was  as  follows:  “The  Presbyterian 
Church  of  the  United  States  recognizes  two  Scrip¬ 
tural  grounds  of  divorce,”  which  he  explained  to  be 
adultery  and  desertion.  In  the  first  place  this  pas¬ 
sage  which  he  took  for  his  text  reprobates  divorce, 
as  we  have  just  seen;  and  in  the  second,  it  was  news 
to  the  Presbyterian  Church  as  well  as  to  the  world 
that  this  body  of  Christians  were  so  liberal  in  the 
matter  of  divorce.  One  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce 
is  too  many,  but  if  we  are  to  have  two  Scriptural 
grounds  of  divorce,  why  not  be  democratic  enough 
to  include  a  third  for  incompatibility  and  another 
for  horse-stealing? 


CHAPTER  VI 


MATTHEW  XIX-9 

There  is  no  doubt  that  there  was  a  Scriptural 
ground  of  divorce  in  the  Old  Testament  and  we  have 
seen  how  Jesus  repudiated  it  in  Matthew  V-82,  and 
in  Mark  X-ll,  and  in  Luke  XVI-18.  It  only  re¬ 
mains  to  investigate  whether  He  made  any  exception 
in  Matthew  XIX-9,  which  is  the  only  Scripture  text 
that  can  be  found  in  the  New  Testament  to  support 
such  a  claim.  The  whole  question  of  divorce,  for 
any  and  every  cause,  including  adultery,  all  narrows 
itself  down  and  rests  upon  Matthew  XIX-9.  We 
have  disposed  of  the  other  false  claim  in  the  preced¬ 
ing  chapter,  and  now  the  gauge  of  battle  rests  upon 
a  single  verse  of  the  Scripture  last  mentioned,  and 
the  critical  intelligence  of  the  reader  is  once  more 
challenged  for  a  decisive-  bout  to  determine  whether 
or  not  this  Scripture  is  forged.  If  so,  then  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce,  and 
the  mantle  of  religion  should  no  longer  be  thrown 
around  this  iniquity  that  has  established  itself  in  the 
church  and  debauched  marriage  and  public  morals. 

The  Gospel  of  St.  John  does  not  refer  to  divorce. 

91 


92  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

St.  Mark  lays  down  the  spiritual  law  against  it, 
without  exception.  St.  Luke  delivers  a  broadside 
volley  against  it  which  sweeps  the  whole  field.  St. 
Matthew  is  the  only  one  of  the  four  gospels  where 
this  bogus  Scripture  appears.  The  other  two  Gos¬ 
pels,  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke,  are  squarely  against 
St.  Matthew.  Presently  we  will  set  St.  Matthew 
versus  St.  Matthew  and  thus  drive  this  wretched 
fraud  into  a  comer  to  be  confronted  with  the  light 
of  truth. 

Matthew  XIX-9,  reads  as  follows : 

3  The  Pharisees  also  came  unto  him,  tempting 
him  and  saying  unto  him,  Is  it  lawful  for  a  man  to 
put  away  his  wife  for  every  cause? 

4,  And  he  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Have  ye 
not  read,  that  he  which  made  them  at  the  beginning 
made  them  male  and  female? 

5  And  said,  For  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave 
father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his  wife;  and 
they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh? 

6  Wherefore  they  are  no  more  twain,  but  one  flesh. 
What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not 
man  put  asunder. 

7  They  say  unto  him,  Why  did  Moses  then  com¬ 
mand  to  give  a  writing  of  divorcement,  and  to  put 
her  away? 

8  He  saith  unto  them,  Moses  because  of  the  hard¬ 
ness  of  3rour  hearts  suffered  you  to  put  away  your 
wives :  but  from  the  beginning  it  was  not  so. 

9  And  I  say  unto  you,  whosoever  shall  put  away 
his  wife,  except  it  be  for  fornication,  and  shall  marry 


Matthew  XIX- 9 


93 


another,  committeth  adultery ;  and  whoso  marrieth 
her  which  is  put  away,  doth  commit  adultery. 

Forgery  is  defined  by  the  law  as  “The  fraudulent 
making  or  alteration  of  a  writing  to  the  prejudice  of 
another  man’s  right.”  From  this  technical  definition 
we  pass  to  other  kinds  of  forgeries,  for  there  are 
many  kinds :  such  as  forgeries  in  literature,  paint¬ 
ing,  art,  and  even  old  furniture,  which  are  fraudu¬ 
lent.  The  palming  off  of  anything  as  genuine  which 
is  false  constitutes  the  essential  character  of  any 
kind  of  forgery  which  is  always  fraudulent — the  in¬ 
tent  is  to  deceive,  and  profit  by  the  deception. 

Another  necessary  observation  as  to  forgery  is 
that  in  the  case  of  writings,  especially  such  as 
financial  obligations  or  contracts,  a  forgery  may 
consist  in  erasure  or  omissions,  quite  as  much  as  in 
additions.  The  manipulation  of  a  note  or  contract, 
by  which  any  part  is  omitted  which  changes  its  char¬ 
acter  is  also  a  forgery.  As  an  illustration,  the 
writer,  years  ago,  had  connection  with  a  case  of 
forgery  where  a  man  borrowed  a  thousand  dollars  on 
a  property  already  encumbered  by  a  mortgage  to  its 
full  value.  He  effected  this  by  procuring  an  ab¬ 
stract  of  title  of  the  property,  and  by  eliminating 
from  it  the  prior  encumbrance.  Being  regular  upon 
its  face,  and  there  being  nothing  to  show  the  omis¬ 
sion  of  the  prior  mortgage,  the  abstract  was 
approved  by  an  attorney,  and  the  money  loaned. 


94  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  \Divorce  Forgery 

The  fraud  was  soon  discovered,  the  criminal  was 
arrested  in  a  distant  State  and  extradited,  convicted 
and  sent  to  the  Penitentiary  for  a  term  of  years. 
The  man  who  omitted  some  original  words  in  Mat¬ 
thew  XIX-9  and  inserted  something  else  perpetrated 
a  fraud  equally  cunning  in  changing  the  words  of 
Jesus,  and  the  two  cases  are  to  all  intents  and  pur¬ 
poses  alike. 

The  Revisors  of  the  New  Testament  were  a  body 
of  men  chosen  from  England  and  the  United  States, 
thirty-eight  (38)  in  all,  for  their  learning  and 
scholarship,  and  began  their  work  about  1870  and 
finished  in  eleven  years.  They  had  access  to  all  the 
ancient  versions  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament; 
and  it  is  amazing  to  see  from  their  marginal  notes 
how  many  changes,  important  or  otherwise,  that  the 
four  gospels  have  suffered  in  all  their  many  and 
respective  versions.  Matthew  XIX-9  is  only  one  of 
hundreds.  Yet  its  importance,  owing  to  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  the  subject,  makes  it  conspicuous. 

On  the  margin  of  verse  nine  in  the  revised  version 
are  the  words :  “Some  ancient  authorities  read,  ‘Sav- 
ing  for  the  cause  of  fornication  maketh  her  an 
adultress,’  as  in  Matthew  V-32.” 

Now  in  King  James’  version  you  have  in  verse  nine 
a  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce,  but  the  Revisors 
have  shown  us  that  there  are  other  ancient  versions 
of  this  ninth  verse,  which  contradict  King  James’ 
version,  and  give  us  something  entirely  different  and 


Matthew  XIX-9 


95 


which,  if  true  Scripture,  forever  dispose  of  a  Scrip¬ 
tural  ground  of  divorce. 

Somebody  has  committed  a  forgery.  Either  the 
King  James’  version  was  the  original  and  these 
ancient  versions  have  been  forged  to  read  exactly 
like  Matthew  V-32 ;  or,  one  of  these  ancient  versions 
was  the  original  and  has  been  altered  to  read  as  verse 
nine  does  in  our  own  Bible,  making  the  Sciiptural 
ground  of  divorce  there  contained  a  forgery.  Which 

O 

is  most  likely,  and  which  is  the  true  Scripture? 

So  far  as  we  are  informed  there  is  no  other  ver¬ 
sion  like  King  James’.  “Some  ancient  authorities,” 
does  not  mean  one  but  are  several,  perhaps  three, 
and  these  three  are  supported  by  Matthew  V-33. 

Here  is  Matthew  vs.  Matthew,  which  at  the  very 
least,  puts  the  existence  of  a  “Scriptural  ground  of 
Divorce”  in  doubt.  It  is  under  suspicion,  and  it  is 
now  on  the  defensive — the  burden  of  proof  rests  upon 
it. 

The  testimony,  however,  is  not  in  equilibria ,  for 
these  several  ancient  versions  are  directly  against 
King  James’  one,  and  Matthew  V-32  furnishes 
another  witness  which  while  indirect  is  of  tremendous 
corroborative  importance. 

All  Scripture,  and  every  verse  of  Scripture  that  is 
Catholic  and  genuine  should  read  alike  in  the  differ¬ 
ent  versions,  semper1  eadem  et  ubique.  If  it  does  not 
so  read,  it  has  been  tampered  with  and  corrupted  by 
accident,  mistake  or  fraud.  Matthew  XIX-9  has 


96  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

been  tampered  with  fraudulently.  The  question  is, 
should  this  verse  read  as  it  does  in  King  James’  ver¬ 
sion,  or  as  it  does  in  the  ancient  authorities  referred 
to,  and  Matthew  V-32?  Which  one  is  fraudulent? 

We  have  verse  nine  in  King  James’  version  stand¬ 
ing  alone  without  any  support  of  corroboration.  It 
is  made  in  conjunction  with  and  immediately  after 
the  statement  of  the  spiritual  law  and  Sacrament  of 
Marriage,  which  it  contradicts  and  wholly  nullifies, 
and  which  is  ignored  by  Protestantism.  The  motive 
for  the  forgery  and  its  disastrous  results  is  with 
King  James’  version. 

It  is  coupled  with  spurious  Scripture  which  imme¬ 
diately  follows  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  possibly  a  dozen,  but 
at  least  three  ancient  authorities  which  make  verse 
nine  read  exactly  like  Matthew  V-32,  which  we  have 
before  discussed,  and  which  we  have  seen  is  honest 
Scripture  and  with  a  good  and  holy  purpose.  Every 
one  of  these  authorities  condemns  divorce  and  makes 
no  exception. 

If  King  James’  version  of  verse  nine  is  genuine, 
how  came  there  at  least  three  ancient  authorities  to 
be  altered  so  as  to  read  like  Matthew  V-32 ;  and 
what  would  have  been  the  motive?  There  would  be 
none. 

A  man  may  be  pretty  well  known  by  his  associates 
and  the  kind  of  company  he  keeps ;  and  so  when  a 
verse  of  Scripture  that  has  been  the  subject  of  a 


Matthew  XIX-9 


97 


forgery,  the  bad  motive  of  which  is  apparent  is 
found  in  bad  company,  the  fact  does  not  help  it, 
but  only  confirms  our  convictions.  The  passages 
immediately  following  in  King  James’  version  the 
Scriptural  ground  of  divorce  relates  to  eunuchs,  and 
we  do  not  need  the  Revisors  of  the  New  Testament 
to  tell  us  that  this  drivel  is  not  the  words  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  that  many  ancient  authorities  omit  this 
passage  also.  This  passage  about  eunuchs,  like  the 
Scriptural  ground  of  divorce,  is  confined  solely  to 
the  Book  of  Matthew.  It  is  not  in  any  of  the  other 
books,  nor  in  any  version  of  Matthew,  save  King 
James’,  so  far  as  we  know.  Neither  one  of  these 
tramp  Scripture  verses  helps  the  other  when  they 
are  arrested  in  each  other’s  company  and  are  in  the 
Police  Court.  I  venture  to  guess  that  the  man  who 
corrupted  Matthew  XIX-9,  and  made  adultery  a 
ground  of  divorce  was  a  eunuch. 

Another  fact  is  well  known  among  scholars  and 
Bible  critics.  There  was  a  Greek  version  of 
Matthew,  and  no  doubt  it  affected  every  Greek  ver¬ 
sion  of  that  writer,  that  was  full  of  interpolations, 
corruptions  and  errors ;  more  so  than  any  of  the 
other  books  of  the  New  Testament.  But  without  this 
general  statement  or  charge,  we  can  afford  to  confine 
ourselves  to  the  single  specification  that  Matthew 
XIX-9  contradicts  itself,  and  that  there  are  many 
other  versions,  of  clean  character  and  upiight  motive 
so  far  as  divorce  is  concerned,  which  opposes  verse 


98  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  i Divorce  Forgery 

nine  of  King  James’  version,  which  so  far  as  known 
stands  alone  with  no  support. 

Let  us  put  Matthew  XIX-9,  according  to  some 
ancient  authorities  side  by  side  with  the  same  verse 


in  King  James’  version  : 

Some  ancient  versions 
and  as  it  should  read, 
like  Matthew  V-3S : 

And  I  say  unto  you, 
Whosoever  shall  put 
away  his  wife,  except  it 
be  for  fornication,  caus- 
eth  her  to  commit  adul¬ 
tery  ;  and  whosoever  shall 
marry  her  that  is  di¬ 
vorced  committeth  adul¬ 
tery. 


King  James’  version: 

And  I  say  unto  you, 
Whosoever  shall  put 
away  his  wife,  except  it 
be  for  fornication  and 
shall  marry  another, 
committeth  adultery ; 
and  whoso  marrieth  her 
that  is  put  away  doth 
commit  adultery. 


It  will  be  observed  that  these  two  versions  of  verse 
nine  differ  in  toto  ccelo.  In  the  first  is  the  effect  that 
divorce  has  upon  an  (innocent)  woman.  The  second 
relates  to  the  man  alone.  In  the  first  it  is  the  putting 
away  his  wife  that  is  the  sin.  In  the  second  it  is  not 
the  putting  away  his  wife  that  is  the  sin,  but  his  re¬ 
marriage  unless  he  put  his  wife  away  for  adultery. 
The  words,  “except  it  be  for  fornication,”  are  genu¬ 
ine  Scripture  and  are  common  to  both.  The  forgery 
consists  in  leaving  out  the  words,  “causeth  her  to 
commit  adultery” — talking  about  the  man  alone  in- 


Matthew  XIX- 9 


99 


stead  of  the  woman,  and  giving  the  words,  “saving 
for  the  cause  of  fornication,”  a  meaning  in  King 
James’  version  that  it  did  not  have  in  the  original, 
for  we  showed  in  the  last  chapter  that  the  words  of 
genuine  Scripture  in  Matthew  V-32,  were  necessary 
to  describe  not  a  guilty,  but  an  innocent  woman,  and 
no  such  distinction  is  applicable  in  the  forged  Scrip¬ 
ture,  for  it  relates  only  to  the  man. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  cunning  and  slickest  frauds 
that  could  be  imagined.  It  surpasses  in  fine  work 
the  fixing  up  and  doctoring  of  an  abstract  title. 

The  writer  at  one  time,  fell  into  the  mistake  of 
thinking  that  the  forgery  in  Matthew  XIX- 9  con¬ 
sisted  in  the  insertion  of  the  words,  “saving  for  the 
cause  of  fornication,”  as  they  might  have  been 
inserted  in  Luke  XVI-18,  as  follows: 


Luke  XVI- 18 — Genuine:  Luke  XVI-18,  if  forged: 


Whosoever  putteth 
away  his  wife  and  mar- 
rieth  another,  commit- 
teth  adultery ;  and 
whosoever  marrieth  her 
that  is  put  away  from 
her  husband  committeth 
adultery. 


Whosoever  putteth 
away  his  wife  “saving 
for  the  cause  of  fornica¬ 
tion”  and  marrieth  an¬ 
other,  committeth  adul¬ 
tery  ;  and  whosoever 
marrieth  her  that  is  put 
away  from  her  husband 
committeth  adultery. 


But  I  was  wrong.  The  skill  and  ingenuity  of  this 
forger  consisted  in  making  the  words,  “saving  for  the 


100  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  \Divorce  Forgery 

cause  of  fornication,”  in  Matthew  XIX-9  have  a 
meaning  that  they  did  not  have  in  Matthew  V-32,  by 
omitting  what  came  after  them.  The  man  who  did 
that  had  a  cunning  brain,  and  he  would  have  been  a 
dangerous  man  in  manipulating  an  abstract  of  Title. 

The  XIX  chapter  of  Matthew  is  very  remarkable 
for  what  it  contains  in  contrast  with  the  alleged 
Scriptural  ground  of  divorce,  and  in  contradiction 
of  it.  For  in  marshalling  our  witnesses  and  authority 
of  reasons  against  a  Scriptural  ground  of  divorce, 
the  most  overwhelming  proof  of  its  falsity  is  the 
words  of  Jesus  Christ  immediately  preceding  it.  The 
chapter  gives  a  hostile  interview  between  the  Phari¬ 
sees  and  Jesus,  who  hoped  to  entrap  Him,  and  the 
same  interview  is  given  in  almost  identical  words  in 
Mark  X  (except  that  Mark  has  no  Scriptural 
ground  of  divorce  which  cannot  be  accounted  for  ex¬ 
cept  on  the  theory  that  it  is  a  fraud). 

Jesus  repudiates  the  law  of  Moses  as  to  all  divorce 
and  explains  at  length  to  them  the  Sacrament  of 
Marriage,  by  which  two  become  one  and  the  twain 
would  become  one  flesh.  He  was  teaching  spiritual 
and  not  physical  truth,  for  the  twain  could  only  be¬ 
come  one  flesh  in  a  spiritual  sense.  The  Sacrament 
of  Marriage,  and  the  spiritual  and  religious  nature 
of  marriage  has  never  been  so  comprehensively  and 
so  concisely  stated  as  it  has  been  in  those  memorable 
words.  He  declares  the  absolute  indissolubility  of 
the  Holy  bond  of  marriage  and  lays  down  the  law 


Matthew  XI XM 


101 


that  what  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man  put 
asunder.  He  leaves  no  ground  for  doubt  or  excep¬ 
tion  in  this  sweeping  statement  of  spiritual  prin¬ 
ciples,  and  after  denouncing  the  law  of  Moses  as  not 
being  the  law  of  God  He  settles  divorce  forever  by 
stating  what  marriage  was  from  the  “Beginning”  of 
Creation  and  what  it  should  be  until  the  end  of  time. 
He  stated  this  so  succinctly  and  circumstantially 
that  any  qualification  of  it,  however  small,  would  not 
be  an  exception  but  a  denial  of  the  principle  He  laid 
down;  and  the  Scripture  bears  witness  within  itself 
that  there  can  be  no  violation  of  any  part  of  it  with¬ 
out  the  destruction  of  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage. 
This  being  so  we  need  not  follow  the  sinuosities  of  a 
forger’s  mind,  or  measure  the  truth  of  the  Sacrament 
of  Marriage  which  was  established  before  there  were 
any  Bibles,  by  the  little  two-foot  rule  of  Scripture 
text.  If  we  believe  in  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage  as 
Jesus  believed  in  it,  we  know  that  there  could  not 
be  any  such  thing  as  divorce,  Scripture  or  no  Scrip¬ 
ture,  for  the  one  excludes  the  other,  and  each  is 

inconsistent  with  the  other. 

Then  after  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage  follows,  or 
rather  should  follow  in  the  genuine  Scriptures  the 
humane  plea  for  the  mitigation  of  the  cruelty  by  the 
law  of  Moses  to  an  innocent  woman,  which  this 
forger  has  profanely  manipulated.  Any  one  who 
has  any  literary  perception  can  at  once  detect  the 
false  note.  Instead  of  the  natural  summing  up  with 


102  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  i. Divorce  Forgery 

which  Jesus  ends  in  this  ninth  verse  by  asking  for  a 
humane  administration  of  the  law  of  Moses  for  an 
innocent  woman,  as  he  did  in  Matthew  V-32,  it  ends 
in  an  anti-climax,  and  violence  is  done  to  the  context 
both  in  its  letter  and  spirit. 

The  forgery  being  established  beyond  all  contra¬ 
diction  by  the  Revisors  of  the  New  Testament,  the 
only  possible  pretext  or  loophole  of  escape,  after  the 
admission  of  the  fraud,  for  the  Scriptural  ground  of 
divorce,  would  be  to  claim  that  all  those  ancient 
authorities  were  forged,  and  that  the  ninth  verse  of 
King  James’  version  is  the  true  reading.  But  this 
again  would  present  such  an  array  of  impossibilities 
as  to  make  such  a  claim  hopeless.  If  there  were  a 
score  of  versions  similar  to  that  of  Kino-  James’  to 
offset  the  many  or  few  ancient  authorities  that  read 
like  Matthew  V-32,  it  would  still  be  hopeless.  Each 
of  the  ancient  authorities  would  have  to  be  sep¬ 
arately  forged,  without  any  conceivable  motive,  and 
as  the  case  stands  it  would  be  easier  to  forge  the 
King  James’  version,  with  a  ver}^  definite  motive  for 
the  same,  than  these  three  ancient  authorities  with¬ 
out  anv.  And  then  what  about  the  weight  of  the 
rest  of  Scripture?  Mark  and  Luke,  and  even  Mat¬ 
thew  V-32.  Everything  combines  to  establish  the 
fraud  in  Matthew  XIN-9  of  King  James’  version. 

There  are  some  other  considerations  which  have 
a  general  bearing  on  this  subject.  In  Matthew 
XIX,  3-9  we  have  a  wonderfully  sublime  statement 


Matthew  XIX -9 


103 


of  a  spiritual  law  of  the  sacrament  of  marriage  es¬ 
tablished  from  the  Beginning  of  Time.  God’s  laws, 
unlike  human  laws  are  absolutely  perfect  and  admit 
of  no  exception.  Did  Jesus  have  any  power,  or  would 
it  have  been  possible  for  him  to  vary  or  make  an 
exception  to  any  law  of  truth  or  righteousness? 
Was  it  possible  for  him  to  make  a  civil  and  human 
exception  to  a  law  which  he  distinctly  declared  was 
a  law  of  God  from  the  foundation  of  the  world?  Is 
it  possible  for  God  to  violate  His  own  law?  This 
requires  no  answer.  Could  there  be  an  exception  to 
a  Sacrament,  especially  if  the  exception  would 
destroy  it?  This  is  absurd  and  unthinkable.  To 
make  adultery  a  sufficient  cause  to  set  aside  the 
Sacrament  of  Marriage,  is  to  give  civil  laws  a 
superiority  over  spiritual  law,  and  to  despiritualize 
marriage.  Adultery  is  a  crime  punishable  by  civil 
law,  but  it  should  have  no  power  to  break  the  bond 
of  marriage,  nor  has  it  any  more  power  to  do  so 
than  any  of  the  many  causes  of  divorce  under  the 
civil  law.  It  is  the  greatest  offence  against  the 
laws  of  marriage  as  ordered  by  the  State,  but  in 
foro  ecclesia ,  it  cannot  be  and  is  not  so.  If  adultery 
is  sufficient  to  break  the  bond  of  marriage,  why 
should  not  cruelty,  vice,  wickedness  and  crime  gen¬ 
erally,  be  also  sufficient  and  why  a  dividing  line?  If 
the  answer  be  that  adultery  invades  the  very  sanctity 
of  marriage,  then  we  rise  from  the  civil  court  to  the 
spiritual  where 


104  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  [Divorce  Forgery 

There  is  no  shuffling ; 

There  the  action  lies  in  his  true  nature, 

and  the  reply  to  such  an  appeal  is  that  the  suitor  to 
the  Spiritual  Court  does  not  come  with  clean  hands 
or  a  pure  heart,  for  he  takes  advantage  of  the 
crime  of  another  to  absolve  himself  from  a  vow. 
Adultery,  by  whomsoever  committed,  must  not  im¬ 
pair  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage.  Such  an  appeal 
to  sanctity  would  make  sanctit}^  non-existent,  if  the 
appeal  is  entertained.  Which  should  prevail — the 
Sacrament  of  Marriage,  or  divorce,  for  each  one  is 
destructive  of  the  other? 

An  exception  to  a  principle,  if  admitted  will  often 
destroy  that  principle.  An  exception  to  truth, 
honor,  righteousness  is  dangerous  or  fatal  to  truth, 
honor  and  righteousness.  Truth  admits  of  no  com¬ 
promise. 

Lord  Mansfield  who  sat  as  Chief  Justice  in  the 
Court  of  Kings’  Bench  in  England  about  two  hundred 
3rears  ago,  decided  to  the  great  glory  of  England 
that  any  slave  who  set  foot  on  English  soil,  whether 
in  England  or  any  of  her  Colonies  was  from  that 
moment  a  free  man,  thereby  deciding  a  great  prin¬ 
ciple  to  the  effect  that  English  law  could  not  recog¬ 
nize  such  a  thing  as  slavery.  Suppose  that  fifty 
years  afterwards  some  African  slave  trader  had 
written  that  Lord  Mansfield’s  decision  contained  an 
exception  to  the  effect  that  every  slave  that  touched 


Matthew  XIX- 9 


105 


English  soil  should  be  free  except  criminals.  Would 
anybody  believe  such  a  thing  inasmuch  as  such  an 
exception  would  be  a  total  denial  of  Lord  Mans¬ 
field’s  principle,  and  as  a  principle,  destroy  it  alto¬ 
gether?  Abraham  Lincoln  held  slavery  in  abomina¬ 
tion,  and  as  a  thing  everlastingly  wrong,  when  he 
said  that  there  was  no  man  living  who  was  good 
enough  to  hold  another  man  in  bondage.  Suppose 
some  one  would  represent  him  as  saying  that  slavery 
was  everlastingly  wrong  and  no  man  was  good 
enough  to  hold  another  man  in  bondage  unless  the 
slave  happened  to  be  a  negro.  Who  for  one  moment 
would  believe  such  an  absurd  story?  and  if  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  ever  said  such  a  thing,  what  would  his 
principles  in  regard  to  slavery  have  been  worth? 
Now  Jesus  held  divorce  in  abomination,  and  that  it 
was  everlastingly  wrong  “from  the  Beginning”  as 
He  said;  and  that  no  man  could  break  the  bond  of 
marriage,  giving  His  reasons  therefor,  and  at  the 
same  tiinb  setting  aside  the  law  of  Moses  which 
allowed  divorce  for  adultery,  and  said  that  this 
was  not  the  law  of  God.  And  suppose  some  man, 
we  care  not  whether  it  was  some  stupid  blunderer  or 
a  eunuch,  or  a  forger,  or  even  if  it  wTas  St.  Matthew 
himself  should  state  that  Jesus  made  an  exception 
of  adultery  in  Matthew  XIX-9,  why  should  we  not 
instantly  declare  that  the  statement  was  false?  Why 
should  we  suppose  that  Jesus  could  be  guilty  of 
aberration  from  a  great  principle  by  practically 


106  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

denying  it,  and  why  should  we  not  think  that  He 
would  not  be  more  true  to  the  eternal  principle  of 
righteousness  than  even  Mr.  Lincoln  or  Lord  Mans¬ 
field  ? 

The  purpose  of  this  treatise  is  to  show  the  fraud¬ 
ulent  nature  of  Matthew  XIX-9,  and  incidentally  to 
give  an  intelligible  and  true  meaning  to  Matthew 
Y-32.  This  is  what  was  promised,  and  this  is  what 
has  been  fully  achieved  and  performed.  The  evi¬ 
dence  is  overwhelming,  and  for  convenience  it  is  here 
given  in  concise  form  by  way  of  recapitulation,  as 
follows : — 

1  The  statement  of  the  Revisors  of  the  New  Tes¬ 
tament  that  a  number  of  ancient  versions  make 
Matthew  XIX-9  read  precisely  like  Matthew  V-32. 
This  establishes  the  forgery,  as  they  are  totally 
unlike  and  contradictory. 

^  There  would  be  no  conceivable  motive  for 
changing  the  reading  of  Matthew  XIX-9,  as  it  is 
m  King  James’  version  to  read  like  these  several  or 
many  “ancient  versions”  which  read  like  Matthew 
V"32,  proving  that  these  ancient  authorities  were 
not  forged  versions. 

3  There  is  a  definite  specific  motive  for  the 
change  of  one  of  these  “ancient  authorities,”  to  read 
like  Matthew  XIX-9  as  it  is  in  King  James’  version, 
namely,  to  nullify  and  destroy  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
with  reference  to  marriage,  the  Sacrament  of  Mar¬ 
riage  and  His  prohibition  of  all  divorce,  in  the 
context. 


Matthew  XIX- 9 


107 


4  The  forgery  of  one  version,  that  of  King 
James’,  which  stands  alone,  was  easier  than  the  for¬ 
gery  of  a  number  of  ancient  versions,  to  which  the 
forger,  naturally  could  never  have  access,  even  if  he 
knew  of  their  existence. 

5  The  forgery  consists  in  leaving  out  what  was 
said  about  the  woman,  and  instead  of  being  merely 
a  humane  plea  making  it  read  as  an  exception  to 
divorce. 

6  There  cannot  be  sugIi  an  exception  to  a 
spiritual  law.  It  can  be  reverently  said  that  God 
and  Jesus  Christ  have  no  powTer  to  violate  spiritual 
laws,  or  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage. 

7  The  Sacrament  of  Marriage  cannot  admit  of 
such  a  thing  as  an  exception. 

8  This  forged  Scripture  of  Matthew  XIX-9  is 
immediately  followed  in  the  same  chapter  by  other 
forged  Scripture  relating  to  eunuchs,  which  also 
does  not  appear  in  these  genuine  ancient  authorities. 

9  King  James’  version,  so  far  as  we  know,  stands 
absolutely  alone,  and  unsupported. 

10  Against  this  last  fact  consider  the  reasons 
above  given  which  overwhelmingly  show  the  forgery, 
and  also  the  fact  that  Matthew  contradicts 
Matthew  in  King  James’  version. 

11  Also  different  versions  of  Matthew  contradict 
each  other. 

12  Mark  squarely  contradicts  Matthew  in  King 
James’  version. 

13  Luke  does  the  same. 

14  King  James’  version  makes  divorce  a  divine 
institution  which  contradicts  good  morals  and  de¬ 
bauches  marriages. 


108  The  BibU  and  Scriptural  \Divorce  Forgery 

15  The  last  and  best  witness  are  the  words  of 
Jesus  Christ  Himself,  who  testifies  in  Matthew  XIX- 
2-8;  whose  true  words  are  found  in  the  ancient 
authorities,  verse  9  of  which  reads  the  same  as 
Matthew  V-32. 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  SACRAMENT  OF  MARRIAGE 


The  following  news  item  appeared  in  the  daily 
papers  a  few  days  ago,  and  it  is  very  suggestive  of 
the  subject  of  this  chapter: 

CHOOSES  TO  DIE  WITH  HIS  WIFE  WHEN 
HER  FATE  IS  SEEN  TO  BE 
INEVITABLE  1 


Train  Strikes  Coupee  in  Last  Embrace  When 
Woman’s  Foot  is  Caught  Inextricably 
at  Chicago  Crossing 


Chicago,  Sept.  2. — Fate  supervened  in  the  pro¬ 
saic  affairs  of  William  Fitch  Tanner  last  night, 
allotting  him  thirty  seconds  to  choose  death  by 
remaining  with  his  wife  Mary,  in  the  path  of  a  fast 
passenger  train  or  life  by  abandoning  her. 

He  chose  death.  They  died  in  each  other’s  arms. 
The  accident  happened  on  the  southbound  track  of 
the  Chicago  &  Northwestern  Railroad  at  Gage 
Street  crossing,  Hubbard  Woods.  John  Miller, 

1  By  permission  of  the  Chicago  Tribune  News  Dispatch. 

109 


110  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

flagman,  was  seriously  injured  trying  to  rescue  the 
pair.  Three  children  are  left  orphans. 

Mr.  Tanner  was  a  cashier  in  the  employ  of  tne 
B.  &  O.  Railroad.  He  was  39  years  old  and  Mrs. 
Tanner  was  38. 

They  had  started  to  attend  a  motion  picture  show. 
It  was  8:30  o’clock  when  they  arrived  at  the  Hub¬ 
bard  Woods  crossing. 

They  were  hurrying  across  the  southbound  track, 
when  Mrs.  Tanner  stopped  abruptly.  Her  husband 
asked  what  was  the  matter. 

“My  foot’s  caught,”  she  said. 

He  found  her  foot  had  become  wedged  between  the 
rail  and  a  board. 

HEADLIGHT  SWEEPS  TRACK 

He  reached  down  to  extricate  it,  but  found  it 
resisted  all  efforts. 

In  the  distance,  the  electric  headlight,  already 
sweeping  the  track,  whistled  the  limited  passenger 
train  due  in  Chicago  at  8:40  o’clock. 

Mr.  Tanner  called  to  Miller,  who  hastened  over 

with  his  lantern. 

The  two  men  worked  desperately  to  remove  the 

foot. 

Mrs.  Tanner  swooned.  This  impeded  their 
efforts. 

They  called  vainly  for  help,  but  the  roar  of  the 
train  drowned  their  voices. 

“My  God,  man,”  cried  Miller,  “it’s  hopeless.” 
“Try  again,”  shouted  Tanner.  “We  must  save 

her.” 

The  big  electric  eye  of  the  onrushing  locomotive 


Ill 


The  Sacrament  of  Marriage 

had  now  brought  them  into  direct  focus.  The  cross¬ 
ing  on  which  the  tragedy  was  being  enacted  was  as 
brilliantly  illuminated  as  a  stage. 

The  roar  of  the  train  and  vibration  of  the  rail 
served  to  revive  Mrs.  Tanner.  She  raised  herself 
and  called  to  her  husband : 

“Will,  I  don’t  think  you  can  save  me.” 

He  did  not  hear  her.  She  touched  him.  He  bent 
over  her.  She  repeated  the  statement  and  added : 

“Will,  leave  me.  The  babies  and  your  mother. 
They - ” 

DRAWS  WIFE  CLOSE 

The  train  was  not  more  than  twenty  seconds  away 
now.  Tanner,  half  kneeling,  placed  his  arms  about 
her  and  drew  her  close  to  him.  She  placed  her  arms 
about  his  neck. 

“I  stay  with  you,  Mary,”  he  said,  and  closed  his 
eyes. 

Miller,  the  flagman,  witness  to  the  act  of  supreme 
devotion,  made  one  last  furious  effort  to  save  both. 
He  seized  Mrs.  Tanner  by  the  shoulders  and  pulled 
with  the  strength  of  a  mad  man. 

His  efforts  were  futile.  The  man  and  wife  were 
locked  in  a  death  embrace  and  the  added  weight  was 
too  much  for  him.  But  he  did  not  realize  that. 

He  continued  his  efforts,  and  when  the  pilot  of 
the  engine  struck  the  couple  and  hurled  them  fifty 
feet,  he  was  carried  along  with  them. 

By  a  miracle  he  escaped  death,  but  he  sustained 
a  fracture  of  the  right  arm  and  his  left  leg  was  so 
badly  crushed  it  was  amputated  at  the  Evanston 
General  Hospital.  Miller  is  expected  to  recover, 
but  his  condition  is  critical. 


112  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 


CHILDREN  IGNORANT  OF  LOSS 

Hubbard  Woods  has  its  epic  to-day.  Behind  the 
quiet  easy  running  life  of  the  north  shore  suburb 
there’s  a  feeling  of  awe,  as  if  something  holy  had 
passed  through  the  streets. 

People  coming  into  Chicago  paid  homage  at  the 
scene  of  their  death  to-day.  “This  is  the  place,” 
said  the  new  flagman.  Then  there  was  talk.  One 
woman  cried  as  she  looked  at  it.  And  then  she 
raised  the  question  that  all  Chicago  discussed  to-day 
— whether  the  husband  should  have  elected  to  re¬ 
main  with  his  wife  and  make  the  supreme  sacrifice 
as  he  did  or  whether  he  should  have  saved  himself  for 
the  sake  of  his  children. 

But  in  the  Tanner  home  the  epic  wears  another 
air.  Three  children  are  playing  on  the  porch  with 
a  dog  named  Rab.  A  Avhite-haired  old  woman  sits 
in  a  chair  rocking.  She  is  Mrs.  W.  D.  Chatley, 
Tanner’s  mother. 

Long  ago  her  husband  was  killed  by  a  railroad 
train.  Tanner  was  her  onty  son  and  now  he’s  gone. 

The  children  don’t  know  about  last  night’s 
tragedy. 

No  arrangements  have  been  made  for  the  future 
care  of  the  children,  one  of  the  women  who  spent 
the  morning  at  the  house  said.  All  were  awaiting 
the  arrival  of  Mr.  Tanner’s  sister  from  New  York. 
She  is  expected  to  arrive  here  to-morrow. 

Here  is  another  type  of  what  a  marriage  should 
be : — 

Almost  a  hundred  years  ago  a  young  lawyer  asked 


The  Sacrament  of  Marriage  113 

a  gentleman  for  liis  daughter’s  hand  in  marriage. 
The  father  said  to  his  daughter  : — “Mary,  I  do  not 
think  it  would  be  wise  for  you  to  marry  your  friend. 
I  think  he  is  likely  to  die  of  consumption  within 
six  months.”  The  daughter  replied,  “Father,  you 
have  settled  it ;  then  I  am  going  to  marry  him,  to 
nurse  him” ;  and  she  did  marry  him  and  nursed  him 
until  he  was  seventy  years  of  age,  and  he  died  in 
her  arms.  They  had  a  large  family.  Ten  children 
became  mature  men  and  women,  every  one  of  them 
living  useful  and  unselfish  lives  to  an  unusual  degree. 
The  father  became  a  distinguished  lawyer,  writer 
and  speaker  and  a  lifelong  educator.  His  life  was 
full  of  usefulness.  It  was  the  mother  who  made  his 
fruitful  life  possible.  “Her  husband  is  known  in 
the  gates  when  he  sitteth  among  the  elders  of  the 
land.”  She  was  the  woman  of  Proverbs  XXXI. 
They  lived  in  and  for  each  other.  Hundreds  of  other 
lives  were  influenced  and  moulded  by  them,  and 
their  children  rise  up  and  call  them  blessed. 

Both  of  these  examples  of  marriage  were  the 
results  of  ideals  which  governed  these  people,  moulded 
their  lives  and  made  them  a  success.  And  what  was 
the  secret  of  that  success?  Simply  that  they  had 
old  fashioned  ideals  and  were  true  to  them.  Let  us 
for  a  moment  consider  the  necessity  of  ideals. 

When  God  made  man  He  formed  him  after  a 
divine  ideal  that  existed  in  His  mind  before  man  came 


114  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

into  being.  “Thine  eyes  did  see  my  substance,  yet 
being  unperfect;  and  in  thy  book  all  my  members 
were  written,  which  in  continuance  were  fashioned, 
when  as  yet  there  was  none  of  them.”  And  man  was 
made  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God,  and  therefore 
endowed  with  the  same  capacity  of  conceiving  of 
things  before  he  creates  them,  just  as  he  conceives 
in  his  mind  the  idea  of  a  typewriter,  or  a  sewing 
machine,  or  a  chemical  process  before  he  can  ma¬ 
terialize  it ;  or  what  is  still  finer  and  higher,  the 
ability  to  mould  his  life  so  as  to  make  it  conform 
more  closely  to  the  divine  pattern  and  image.  The 
ability  to  idealize  is  God-like,  and  derived  directly 
from  God  Himself  as  our  birthright.  If  we  attain 
to  anything  it  is  because  we  have  ideals,  and  attain¬ 
ment  is  impossible  without  them. 

Many  people,  perhaps  most,  resent  the  idea  of 
living  for  an  ideal,  at  least  for  one  that  partakes  of 
a  spiritual  nature.  In  their  lives,  they  ignore,  or 
perhaps  deny  the  existence  of  such  a  thing,  although 
they  may  have  plenty  of  others  that  are  sordid  or 
material.  They  know  nothing  about  a  Sacrament  of 
Marriage  and  would  laugh  at  such  a  thing.  They 
have  no  conception  of  what  it  means,  or  what  pos¬ 
sibilities  are  to  be  realized  from  the  fact  that  mar¬ 
riage  is  a  religion  in  itself  and  more  than  a  civil 
contract,  and  that  when  it  is  held  as  something 
sacred,  the  civil  contract  becomes  obsolete  and  is 
merged  in  something  higher, 


The  Sacrament  of  Marriage  115 

The  power  to  idealize  is  the  power  to  see  the 
divine  in  everybody  about  us ;  to  transmute  by  divine 
alchemy  clay  into  gold ;  to  see  the  glory  in  lives  that 
are  to  all  appearances  commonplace.  Jesus  of  Naz¬ 
areth  was  a  peasant,  and  had  not  where  to  lay  His 
head.  Pie  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men.  So 
was  Abraham  Lincoln  by  the  thoughtless,  up  to  the 
very  last.  Both  of  these  men  lived  for  ideals.  It 
required  idealists  to  understand  them  when  they 
lived  on  earth.  The  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
more  than  any  one  else  understood  Jesus  when  he 
identified  Him  with  the  Logos,  and  he  himself  was  an 
idealist.  Mr.  Lincoln  is  justly  idealized  today  and 
his  fame  fills  the  world,  but  he  was  just  as  great, 
when  he  was  a  relatively  obscure  lawyer  in  Spring- 
field,  as  he  was  when  he  carried  the  burdens  of  the 
Civil  War  and  the  hopes  of  humanity.  The  differ¬ 
ence  is  not  between  the  peasant  and  Jesus  the  Christ, 
or  not  between  the  country  lawyer  and  the  Martyred 
President,  but  only  in  our  lack  of  true  vision.  Such 
beings  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  Abraham  Lincoln 
bless  and  inspire  the  world  by  teaching  us  to  be¬ 
come  idealists,  and  such  is  the  lesson  that  every 
martyr  has  given  to  the  world. 

The  first  spiritual  truth  spoken  in  Scripture  is 
that  man  is  made  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God. 
This  means  every  man,  although  most  are  entirely 
unconscious  of  the  fact.  He  still  retains  that  image 
because  he  was  so  created  and  could  not  lose  it.  His 


116  Tlie  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

only  real  purpose  in  life  is  to  develop  the  realization 
of  it.  The  only  way  to  do  that  is  to  work  it  out 
in  his  daily  life.  There  is  nothing  in  the  world  that 
can  so  well  develop  man’s  jnoral  and  spiritual  nature 
as  marriage  when  he  realizes  what  it  means.  And 
this  is  why  it  is  a  Sacrament. 

Protestantism  made  a  very  sorry  choice  between 
the  Sacrament  of  Marriage  and  an  infallible  Bible, 
and  in  doing  so  it  made  a  double  blunder;  the  first 
in  rejecting  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage,  and  the 
second  in  adopting  an  infallible  Bible.  As  to  the 
latter,  it  was  a  choice  that  was  ridiculous  when  it  was 
not  mischievous  and  harmful.  As  to  the  Sacrament 
of  Marriage,  it  was  treason  to  the  Founder  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  and  His  direct  commands ;  and  whether  it 
was  bad  morals,  (for  it  was  in  part),  or  mere 
ignorance  and  stupidity  the  pitiful  result  is  the 
same ;  for  the  world  would  have  been  better  off  since 
the  Reformation  if  the  Protestant  Church  had  not 
been  responsible  for  the  degradation  of  marriage. 
The  estate  of  marriage  is  not  held  in  high  esteem 
today  by  the  majority  of  people.  It  is  a  jest  and 
a  joke  with  the  rabble.  Few  people  have  ever  heard 
the  idea  that  there  is  a  religious  side  to  marriage ; 
yet  a  true  marriage,  in  fact  any  marriage  is  essen¬ 
tially  religious,  and  a  religion,  whether  or  not  the 
parties  are  conscious  of  the  fact.  No  two  people 
can  marry  without  coming  face  to  face  with  God 
and  without  dealing  with  divine  mysteries.  They 


117 


The  Sacrament  of  Marriage 

may  be  as  ignorant  as  animals,  yet  the  fact  remains 
true.  There  is  a  divine  mystery  in  the  union  of 
souls  and  the  union  of  bodies.  Higher  than  either 
is  the  union  of  spirit,  more  or  less  developed  in  all 
human  attraction  when  guided  by  divine  promptings 
which  may  consciously  ripen  into  a  closer  union 
with  the  Divine  itself. 

What  is  a  Sacrament?  It  is  defined  to  be  “The 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual 
grace  given  unto  us  and  ordained  by  Jesus  Christ.” 
Every  Sacrament  contains  a  divine  mystery. 

Baptism  is  the  outward  form  of  the  divine  union 
between  the  individual  and  Jesus  Christ  as  repre¬ 
sented  by  the  Christian  church  of  believers,  and  is 
much  more  than  church  membership.  The  Lord’s 
Supper  or  Holy  Communion  is  the  outward  form  of 
the  mysterious  union  between  Jesus  Christ  and  His 
followers  who  partake  of  His  life  and  make  it  their 
own.  Marriage  is  the  outward  form  of  a  life  union 
between  a  man  and  a  woman  who  choose  each  other 
for  better  or  for  worse,  and  who,  in  its  highest  ideal 
consecrate  themselves  each  to  the  other  and  to  God 
as  a  religious  act.  This  is  the  real  marriage,  and 
the  only  one  that  will  ever  bring  happiness  and  will 
endure  through  the  stress  and  storms  of  life.  It  is 
something  entirely  different  from  mere  legal  con¬ 
cubinage  as  too  many  regard  marriage. 

Each  one  of  the  Sacraments  typifies  a  mystery,  a 
holy  union  and  are  necessarily  religious  in  their 


118  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  \Divorce  Forgery 

nature.  Marriage  is  actually  a  Holy  thing  and 
means  consecration,  and  the  surrender  of  each  to  the 
other,  and  both  to  God.  If  poor  human  nature  does 
not  lift  itself  to  this  ideal  often,  it  should  never 
cease  striving  for  it.  Because  we  see  so  much  failure 
is  all  the  more  reason  why  we  should  hold  fast  to  the 
ideal  as  our  only  anchor. 

It  is  fitting  and  right  to  surround  marriage  with 
outward  religious  rites  and  observances,  to  have  it 
solemnized  by  a  clergyman  and  in  the  Church  instead 
of  the  office  of  a  civil  magistrate.  Civil  marriage 
should  be  avoided  and  regarded  as  irreligious  and 
vulgar,  if  not  totally  indecent.  The  proclamation 
of  the  bans  of  marriage  was  a  good  and  wholesome 
old  custom,  and  greatly  conduced  to  the  good  of  the 
body  politic  as  well  as  to  the  dignity  of  marriage. 
The  occasion  of  the  celebration  of  marriage  should 
be  attended  with  all  decent  observances  and  conven¬ 
tions  as  tending  to  dignify  it,  whether  in  the  home 
or  the  church,  and  for  the  purpose  of  educating 
people  to  understand  that  marriage  at  its  very 
foundation  is  religious. 

The  fact  is  that  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage  is 
the  only  thing  that  redeems  marriage  from  animality 
and  legal  concubinage. 

Jesus  Christ  has  made  marriage  honorable  by  His 
example  and  by  His  explicit  teachings.  The  Sacra¬ 
ment  of  Marriage  is  explicitly  recognized  by  Him  as 
established,  not  by  Him,  but  God.  “From  the  Be- 


The  Sacrament  of  Marriage 


119 


ginning” — a  something  which  made  the  “twain  one 
flesh.”  “Wherefore  they  are  no  more  twain  but  one 
flesh.”  Jesus  gave  a  metaphysical  and  spiritual 
meaning  to  these  words :  in  other  words  He  made 
marriage  a  religion.  Otherwise  His  statements  if 
understood  literally  and  materially  would  be  absurd, 
and  impossible,  for  two  bodies  cannot  become  one 
flesh  except  in  a  spiritual  sense.  Materially  it  could 
not  be  a  true  statement,  but  as  a  great  spiritual  fact 
it  is  an  explanation  and  statement  of  the  Sacrament 
of  Marriage.  Protestantism  has  chosen  to  deny  the 
explicit  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  says  that  mar¬ 
riage  is  not  a  sacrament.  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
when  clergymen  are  oblivious  to  this  teaching  of 
Jesus,  that  marriage  has  become  generally  debauched 
and  is  falling  more  and  more  every  year,  just  as 
the  tide  of  divorce  is  steadily  rising,  from  the  dig¬ 
nity  and  sacredness  of  its  high  estate?  The  fault 
is  not  so  much  with  the  people  as  with  the  clergymen 
and  they  should  be  held  responsible. 

There  are  many  people  who  go  through  life  who 
know  nothing  of  a  true  friendship — either  such 
friendship  as  existed  between  David  and  Jonathan, 
or  the  highest  kind  of  a  friendship  as  that  between 
a  man  and  a  woman  which  may  be  found  in  an  ideal 
marriage.  Whether  they  go  through  the  world 
unconscious  of  what  they  miss,  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  longings  which  are  never  satisfied,  they  are  to 
be  pitied  for  the  lack  of  that  which  alone  makes  life 


120  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

complete.  Selfishness  rather  than  selflessness  may 
deceive  for  a  time ;  ambition  for  any  worldly  success 
like  money  or  fame  may  seem  to  supplant  and  to 
usurp  love,  but  in  the  hnal  reckoning  life  becomes 
bankrupt  without  the  capacity  to  love  and  surrender 
oneself  to  another — and  love  does  not  necessarily 
mean  to  be  loved.  The  friendship  of  a  husband  and 
wife,  each  supplementing  and  enriching  the  other  is 
the  highest  thing  that  life  can  afford.  It  exceeds  all 
other  human  love,  and  the  institution  is  divine. 
Before  the  morning  stars  sang  together,  and  before 
any  human  being  appeared  on  earth  it  was  planned 
by  God  as  the  one  thing  necessary  to  complete  the 
universe.  It  holds  the  divine  mysteries  of  creation, 
the  miracles  of  physical  and  spiritual,  life  for  the 
race  which  establishes  its  sacramental  nature.  The 
welfare  of  society  and  the  civil  state  is  involved  in 
it.  The  home  and  the  influences  which  should  radiate 
from  it,  even  greater  than  that  of  the  church,  is  the 
hope  of  the  world.  Where  there  is  no  religion  in  the 
home  there  is  none  in  the  church.  The  home  is  for 
the  father  and  the  mother  and  especially  for  the 
children;  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  starts  there, 
as  Jesus  said. 

Lo !  such  the  child  whose  early  feet 
The  paths  of  peace  have  trod 

Whose  secret  heart  with  influence  sweet 
Is  upward  turned  to  God. 


The  Sacrament  of  Marriage  121 

Let  us  protect  and  defend  the  children  and  the 
home  against  the  desolation  of  divorce.  Let  us  also 
keep,  guard  and  protect  the  parents.  Let  us  main¬ 
tain  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage  in  the  home,  the 
church  and  in  the  state.  It  is  the  thing  to  begin 
with  if  we  would  build  noble  structures,  happy  mar¬ 
riages,  fine  children,  unselfish  men  and  women,  noble 
lives,  also  the  church,  also  the  State. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


SOME  PRACTICAL  SUGGESTIONS 

If  there  was  no  such  thing  as  divorce  allowed  there 
would  be  fewer  improper  and  careless  marriages.  If 
two  persons  know  that  they  could  not  divorce  each 
other  it  would  naturally  make  them  more  careful  as 
to  the  future  of  their  union.  Not  only  would  there 
be  a  mental  adjustment  to  this  fact  before  marriage 
but  especially  afterwards.  They  would  know  that 
they  had  in  reality  taken  each  other  for  better  or 
worse  as  they  should  do,  and  not  regard  that  vow  as 
a  mere  form  of  meaningless  words.  In  such  case  there 
would  be  more  reason  and  necessity  for  harmonizing 
their  differences.  There  would  necessarily  be  a  dif¬ 
ferent  atmosphere  of  thought.  It  would  save  and 
retrieve  many  a  marriage  that  otherwise  would  be 
wrecked.  They  would  not  think  of  divorce  as  a 
safety  valve,  but  would  be  turned  to  something 
better. 

On  the  other  hand  when  divorce  is  allowed  the 
infection  will  be  in  the  air.  Differences  may  arise 
from  many  causes ;  and  irritation  give  rise  to  reckless 
speech  and  wrongful  acts.  Instead  of  having  toler- 

122 


Some  Practical  Suggestions  123 

ance  and  forbearance  with  each  other,  when  the  fate¬ 
ful  threat — “I’ll  get  a  divorce”  is  once  spoken,  there 
is  danger  that  this  poisoned  arrow  may  always  leave 
a  barb  in  the  wound.  Something  has  been  said  that 
never  can  be  recalled,  or  at  least  forgotten.  Would 
it  not  be  well  to  prevent  such  a  possibility? 

Divorce  promotes  and  contributes  to  divorce.  If 
there  were  no  such  things  as  divorce,  there  would  be 
less  cause  for  it.  When  husbands  and  wives  have 
unhappy  differences,  they  would  learn  that  Christian 
tolerance  and  forbearance  would  be  the  only  cure, 
and  instead  of  hastily  breaking  the  bond  of  marriage 
as  they  suppose,  which  in  the  sight  of  God  is 
impossible,  they  would  naturally  seek  some  modus 
vivendi  which  would,  unlike  divorce,  bring  them  into 
Christian  relations  with  each  other — and  thus  save 
a  home,  their  children  and  themselves  from  wreck. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  many  marriages  that 
never  should  have  been  made.  There  will  often  be 
folly  and  recklessness,  with  no  thought  for  the 
future.  Selfishness  will  play  its  part,  and  deception 
may  not  be  improbable.  There  may  be  no  foundation 
whatever,  such  as  would  be  necessary  in  an  ordinary 
friendship,  and  in  such  case  it  is  not  strange  that 
married  people,  who  are  governed  by  passion  or 
feeling  alone  and  not  by  principle,  should  pull  apart. 
While  such  marriages  are  common,  divorce  is  not 
the  remedy.  There  are  many  better  ways. 

There  are  cases  in  which  a  man  and  woman  should 


124  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  JDivorce  Forgery 

not  live  with  each  other,  but  these  will  not  be  common 
especially  if  there  should  be  no  divorce,  for  the 
impossibility  of  divorce  would  tend  to  draw  them 
together.  But  when  there  is  no  hope  of  this  pos¬ 
sibility,  where  wickedness,  cruelty  and  crime  make 
life  together  an  improper  thing  for  husbands,  wives 
and  children,  then  as  a  last  extremity  they  should 
live  apart,  but  not  divorce  each  other.  A  legal 
separation  should  be  had  if  absolutely  necessary,  but 
never  a  divorce. 

A  divorce  is  a  separation  a  vinculo  matrimonii  or 
from  the  bond  of  matrimony.  It  may  provide  ali¬ 
mony  either  to  the  husband  or  wife,  also  for  the 
custody  of  children  and  it  permits  either  party  to 
marry  again,  no  matter  what  crimes  may  have  been 
committed  against  the  married  state,  thus  often 
spreading  moral  infection  through  a  community  not 
only  by  the  divorce  but  by  new  marriages  often  as 
immoral  as  the  first  which  has  been  violated. 

A  legal  separation  affords  every  benefit  that  is 
found  in  divorce,  except  that  it  does  not  allow  the 
parties  to  remarry.  It  is  called  a  mensa  et  thoro ; 
or  separation  from  bed  and  board.  This  kind  of 
judicial  separation  requires  that  the  parties  should 
live  apart,  without  interference  from  each  other — 
and  it  also  provides  for  alimony  to  husband  or  wife 
and  for  the  custody  of  children.  This  kind  of  sep¬ 
aration  should  satisfy  every  honest  desire  of  a  hus¬ 
band  or  wife  for  protection  against,  or  interference 


Some  Practical  Suggestions  125 

with,  each  other.  If  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
divorce,  separations  a  mensa  et  thoro  would  be  ex¬ 
tremely  rare.  Few  people  have  ever  heard  of  such 
a  thing.  This  law  is  in  force  in  a  few  States,  and 
where  the  statutes  of  a  State  do  not  provide  for  it 
there  is  a  common  law  power  in  the  Equity  side  of 
all  Courts  of  Record  to  give  this  relief,  and  a 
judicial  separation  of  husband  and  wife  may  be  had 
in  any  State  of  the  Union.  So  far  as  separation 
is  concerned  this  law  affords  a  full  and  complete  re¬ 
lief,  except  remarriage.  It  is  believed  that  in  ninety- 
nine  cases  out  of  every  hundred  that  the  object  of 
divorce  is  to  allow  one  or  both  of  the  parties  to 
remarry,  and  frequently  it  is  an  agreed  or  under¬ 
stood  thing.  Divorce  is  always  disreputable  under 
the  best  of  circumstances  but  the  records  of  the 
courts  disclose  many  cases  that  are  simply  beastly, 
and  they  are  so  common  that  the  public  conscience 
becomes  deadened.  If  we  had  no  divorce  there  would 
be  higher  standard  of  morals.  To  raise  the  stand¬ 
ard  of  morals,  raise  the  standard  of  marriage  and 
keep  it  sacred.  To  lower  and  degrade  marriage  is 
to  lower  and  do  away  with  public  morals. 

So  far  as  the  honest  separation  of  married  people 
is  concerned,  a  judicial  separation  answers  every 
requirement,  and  fully  answers  the  objection  that 
divorce  is  necessary. 

But  the  advocate  of  divorce  will  say  that  it  does 
not  do  this,  for  people  must  remarry. 


126  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

The  answer  to  this  is : — Every  marriage  of  a 
divorced  person,  the  other  party  being  still  living, 
is  immoral  and  unchristian.  Jesus  declares  that 
whosoever  shall  marry,  being  divorced,  committeth 
adultery,  and  adultery  is  the  ugly  word  he  uses; 
and  further,  that  any  person  who  marries  a  divorced 
person  commits  adultery.  His  words  in  Luke  XVI- 
18  are  as  follows:  “Whosoever  putteth  away  his 
wife  and  marrieth  another  committeth  adultery ;  and 
whosoever  marrieth  her  that  is  put  away  committeth 
adultery.”  The  same  clear  cut  statement  appears  in 
Matthew  V-32,  and  in  Mark  X-ll. 

The  clergy  of  the  Episcopal  Church  however,  pre¬ 
tending  all  the  while,  to  follow  the  teachings  of 
Jesus,  have  violated  these  explicit  teachings  by  legis¬ 
lating  as  between  the  guilty  and  innocent  party, 
oblivious  to  the  fact  that  the  “innocent”  party  is 
always  a  guilty  party  when  he  or  she  remarries.  A 
church  canon  provides  that  Court  records  must  be 
produced  to  the  Bishop’s  legal  adviser  &c.,  to  deter¬ 
mine  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  party.  This 
foolish  and  immoral  legislation  can  easily  be  evaded. 
A  divorced  person  can  easily  be  married  by  an 
Episcopalian  minister  to  whom  the  fact  of  divorce 
is  not  disclosed,  or  is  misrepresented,  or  wholly 
denied.  And  why  should  a  divorced  person  go  to 
the  delay,  and  trouble  and  great  expense  of  getting 
Court  records,  when  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  go  to 
any  Protestant  minister  and  be  married  without  any 


Some  Practical  Suggestions  127 

such  trouble?  This  legislation  is  only  a  pretense, 
on  paper,  against  the  widespread  looseness  of  the 
church  in  the  matter  of  divorce,  simply  a  holier-than~ 
thou  attitude  toward  other  churches.  The  true 
Christianity  is,  to  marry  no  divorced  persons.  An 
Episcopal  clergyman  told  the  writer  a  few  days 
ago  that  he  had  lately  been  imposed  upon,  and  that 
after  officiating  at  a  marriage,  he  found  out  that 
he  had  married  the  guilty  party.  He  claimed  that 
he  was  not  to  blame,  being  imposed  upon;  but  it 
never  occurred  to  him  that  of  the  three  wrongdoers, 
he  was  the  one  who  should  be  held  the  most  guilty 
for  an  unchristian  marriage.  It  would  have  been 
equally  reprehensible  from  the  Christian  standpoint 
if  he  had  married  a  party  who  had  never  been 
married  before,  who  desired  to  be'  married  to  any 
divorced  person,  who  had  a  husband  or  wife  living. 

The  Episcopal  church  should  know  that  the  guilt 
or  innocence  of  the  parties  has  no  place  or  question 
in  Christianity. 

In  the  coming  General  Episcopal  Convention  of 
the  United  States  it  is  proposed  to  introduce  several 
things,  the  very  mention  of  which  would  make  the 
judicious  grieve,  and  prove  the  demoralization  of 
the  church  on  the  subject  of  marriage  and  divorce. 
One  of  them  is  to  take  out  the  word  “obey”  in  the 
marriage  service,  and  also  the  clause  relating  to  the 
endowment  of  worldly  goods.  In  passing  hurriedly, 
it  may  be  said  that  no  woman  should  ever  marry  a 


128  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

man  whom  she  would  not  willingly  trust  and  obey 
for  life.  When  marriage  means  consecration  and 
surrender,  the  husband  to  the  wife  and  the  wife  to 
the  husband,  the  question  of  obedience  could  hardly 
arise.  As  to  the  endowment  of  worldly  goods,  the 
Convention  should  further  modernize  this  ancient 
marriage  service  and  bring  it  down  to  date.  They 
should  stipulate,  as  has  already  been  gravely  sug¬ 
gested,  that  the  wife  should  have  wages,  or  a  salary, 
especially  if  the  husband  does  not  endow  her  with 
all  his  worldly  goods,  and  put  everything  on  a  busi¬ 
ness  basis ;  with  divorce  coupons  attached  to  the 
marriage  certificate. 

The  proposal  to  revoke  the  canon  which  provides 
that  a  clergyman  may  marry  the  innocent,  but  not 
the  guilty  party,  is  a  move  in  the  right  direction,  by 
declaring  that  a  clergyman  shall  not  marry  any 
person  that  is  divorced.  This  church  is  more  Phari¬ 
saical  than  any  other  Protestant  body  on  the  subject 
of  marriage,  for  other  churches  make  no  weak  pro¬ 
fessions  or  admissions  of  belief  on  the  subject;  and 
after  this  spasm  of  returning  conscience  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  Convention  will  at  least  assume  a 
virtue  and  adopt  this  legislation. 

And,  by  the  way,  what  business  has  the  Episcopal 
church  to  adopt  any  legislation  on  the  subject,  when 
the  last  word  that  ever  can  properly  be  said  was 
fully  and  decisively  pronounced  by  Jesus?  It  would 
be  proper  for  a  Convention  to  confess  the  sin  of 


Some  Practical  Suggestions  129 

the  church  and  renounce  a  scriptural  ground  of 
divorce  on  false  scripture;  but  as  for  legislating  on 
the  subject  as  it  has  done,  it  is  an  arrogant  assump¬ 
tion  of  power  which  it  does  not  possess. 

This  church  claims  a  special  function  of  wisdom 
and  grace  through  the  Apostolic  Succession,  which 
is  a  part  of  the  interesting  and  ornamental  furniture 
of  this  ancient  and  historic  church,  but  is  not  more 
essential  to  a  true  church  or  true  Christianity  than 
is  a  church  steeple.  Instead  of  being  primus  inter 
pares  as  the  greatest  historical  church  and  taking  a 
lead  in  Christendom  for  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ,  it  uses  the  Apostolic  Succession  as 
the  excuse  for  a  certain  aloofness  and  practises  a 
holier-than-thou  attitude  with  regard  to  pulpits  and 
some  other  things.  Now  let  this  venerable  church 
justify  its  claim  of  superior  wisdom  and  grace  by 
taking  the  lead  in  restoring  to  Protestantism  the 
Sacrament  of  Marriage,  and  within  its  pale  abolish 
all  divorce  for  every  cause,  even  as  South  Carolina 
has  already  done  as  a  civil  policy;  but  which  this 
church  should  do  as  a  matter  of  religion  by  declaring 
that  there  is  no  true  or  veritable  Scripture  which 
contains  a  scriptural  ground  of  divorce.  But  this 
is  probably  just  exactly  the  thing  that  the  Episcopal 
Church  will  not  do. 

Since  the  foregoing  was  written  the  Detroit  Gen¬ 
eral  Convention  has  met  and  adjourned,  and  has 
taken  no  action  on  this  proposed  canon  which  would 


130  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

forbid  a  clergyman  to  marry  any  divorced  person. 

The  reason  assigned  was  that  such  a  canon  would 
make  no  distinction  between  the  guilty  and  the 
innocent.  The  debate  showed,  it  is  represented,  that 
the  laymen  were  strongly  opposed  to  any  such  pro¬ 
vision  “regarding  it  as  a  great  injustice  to  innocent 
people.”  Of  course.  But  what  has  the  Apostolic 
Succession — our  friends  the  Bishops,  to  say  about 
this — or  did  they  keep  a  discreet  silence  and  let  the 
laymen  do  all  the  talking?  The  Bishops  know  very 
well  that  marriage  and  divorce  are  dangerous  things 
to  meddle  with,  and  they  are  sufficiently  acquainted 
with  their  Bibles  to  remember  that  John  the  Baptist 
lost  his  head  for  his  foolishness  in  interfering  with 
what  some  people  might  say  did  not  concern  him; 
and  these  Bishops  are  not  likely  to  make  unnecessary 
trouble  for  themselves  by  becoming  martyrs  or  going 
against  public  opinion.  They  are  afraid  of  the 
public  and  afraid  of  each  other.  It  is  quite  unlikely 
that  any  Bishop  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  in  spite 
of  the  especial  gifts  of  wisdom  and  grace  that  are 
supposed  to  belong  to  his  office,  has  ever  had  the 
gumption  to  puzzle  over  Matthew  V-32,  or  better 
still  to  discover  what  it  really  means,  or  that  he 
possesses  any  sixth  spiritual  sense  which  would  make 
him  feel  the  jar  which  Matthew  XIX-9  gives  to  the 
words  of  Jesus  just  preceding  and  to  the  Sacrament 
of  Marriage ;  or  that  if  he  was  sufficiently  endowed 
with  intellectual  and  spiritual  qualifications  to  dis- 


131 


Some  Practical  Suggestions 

cover  what  was  in  these  two  passages,  that  he  would 
have  the  moral  courage  to  raise  any  ruction  about 
it.  It  is  much  easier  for  them  to  throw  an  aura  of 
infallibility  about  this  “Holy  Scripture,”  which  is 
an  admitted  forgery,  as  shown  by  the  different  ver¬ 
sions  and  to  let  heretics  raise  the  ruction.  David 
Harum  might  have  been  thinking  about  Bishops  when 
he  said: — “There’s  as  much  human  nature  in  some 
folks  as  there  is  in  others,  if  not  more.” 

When  we  think  of  the  special  assumption  of  these 
Bishops,  that  by  virtue  of  their  real  or  supposed 
official  descent  from  the  Apostles,  by  which  they 
claim  to  be  the  only  Simon  Pure  depositaries  of  God’s 
charter  to  the  Protestant  wing  of  Christendom,  and 
thereby  endowed  with  wisdom  and  grace  and  a  certain 
infallibility,  they  ought  not  to  complain,  if  we  take 
them  at  their  word  and  ask  them  to  justify  their 
claim.  Let  us  Jo  so.  Let  us  ask  these  Bishops  (not 
that  we  do  not  ourselves  know,  but  only  to  see 
what  they  will  say)  what  Matthew  V-32  means.  Will 
they  dare  say  that  it  has  anything  to  do  with  a 
Scriptural  ground  of  divorce?  If  they  do,  then  they 
will  show  that  they  are  not  up  to  grade  intellect¬ 
ually.  Then  turning  to  Matthew  XIX-9,  let  us  ask 
them  to  state  squarely  whether  or  not  they  believe 
in  a  scriptural  ground  of  divorce  for  adultery,  and 
if  so  how  they  are  to  explain  this  forged  scripture 
in  Matthew.  Also  whether  they  believe  scripture  or 
no  scripture  in  the  morality  of  divorce  for  any  cause. 


13&  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  Divorce  Forgery 

Also  whether  or  not  they  believe  in  the  Sacrament 
of  Marriage  or  in  Marriage  as  a  Sacrament.  These 
questions  should  be  presented  to  any  or  all  of  these 
Bishops  from  some  responsible  quarter,  and  direct 
and  categorical  answers  insisted  upon.  When  we 
would  get  these  answers,  if  they  would  make  any,  we 
would  be  in  a  position  to  know  how  far  these  men 
have  been  endowed  with  the  wisdom  and  grace  that 
are  supposed  to  go  with  Apostolic  Succession.  Until 
then  we  are  willing  to  be  shown.  And  in  the  mean¬ 
time  it  will  be  well  to  take  the  conservative  attitude 
of  the  stranger  who  said  to  Jim  Smiley: — “I  don’t 
see  no  p’ints  about  that  frog  that’s  any  better ’n  any 
other  frog.” 

A  few  weeks  ago  wishing  to  know  if  there  was  any 
Roman  Catholic  literature  that  I  could  obtain  which 
would  discuss  or  throw  any  light  upon  Matthew  V- 
22  and  Matthew  XIX-9,  I  endeavored  to  see  the 
Roman  Catholic  Bishop  who  presumably  might  give 
me  the  information  or  possibly  supply  my  need.  I 
was  met  by  his  Secretary  or  Cerberus,  and  stating 
that  I  was  a  Protestant  but  in  sympathy  with  the 
Roman  Catholic  position  as  to  divorce,  I  stated  my 
specific  object.  The  Secretary  then  saw  the  Bishop 
and  arranged  for  an  audience  with  his  Lordship  at  a 
special  hour.  When  I  presented  myself  at  the  time 
appointed,  I  was  informed  that  it  would  not  suit  the 
Bishop  to  see  me,  and  the  information  I  sought  was 
refused  without  apology  or  explanation. 


Some  Practical  Suggestions  13$ 

Of  course  there  is  nothing  to  be  expected  in  the 
way  of  Protestant  literature  on  this  subject,  but 
there  should  be  records  in  the  Vatican  which  would 
contain  the  proceedings  and  discussions  of  the  Coun¬ 
cil  of  Trent  (A.D.  1545),  and  I  have  no  doubt  books 
have  been  since  written  by  Roman  Catholic  authors 
discussing  this  Scripture.  The  only  light  I  can 
possibly  get  from  any  Protestant  source  would  be 
from  commentaries  on  the  New  Testament,  and 
they  furnish  none  whatever.  They  generally  fumble 
Matthew  V,  showing  they  have  no  comprehension 
of  its  meaning  and  think  that  it  squints  at  a  scrip¬ 
tural  ground  of  divorce.  As  to  Matthew  XIX-9, 
King  James’  version,  of  course  they  think  that  is 
Holy  Scripture.  So  far  as  I  know,  there  is  no 
Protestant  commentator  or  writer  that  entertains 
my  view  of  this  Scripture  and  it  is  a  matter  entirely 
self  evolved  and  upon  my  own  initiative.  I  am  quite 
aware  that  any  new  ideas  of  any  kind  on  the  subject 
of  religion  are  bound  to  be  met  with  hostility,  and 
I  therefore  would  have  been  glad  to  have  found  any 
literature  on  the  subject,  or  any  person  that  could 
agree  with  me.  A  few  years  ago  I  wrote  to  a  friend 
who  was  a  classmate  nearly  sixty  years  ago  who 
sat  beside  me  when  we  would  recite  and  read  Greek 
together  and  who  became  the  Bishop  of  New  York. 
I  submitted  to  him  my  views  as  to  Matthew  V-3£ 
and  Matthew  XIX-9,  and  asked  him  if  he  thought 
they  were  sound.  I  received  his  personal  letter  of 


134  The  Bible  and  Scriptural  i Divorce  Forgery 

acknowledgment,  but  never  anything  more.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  my  request  greatly  embarrassed  him, 
and  he  considered  it  prudent  to  say  nothing  what¬ 
ever  on  this  subject. 

When  I  was  a  boy  in  the  Union  Army,  about 
sixty  years  ago,  I  saw  many  homes  desolated  by  war 
of  which  nothing  remained  but  some  ghostly  chim¬ 
neys  to  mark  the  spot  which  a  roof  tree  had  covered. 
The  outlines  of  once  trim  gardens,  often  with  box¬ 
wood  lined  walks,  were  all  that  was  left  of  what  had 
been  neat  and  beautiful.  A  forlorn  bunch  of  hya¬ 
cinths  or  jonquils,  or  a  neglected  rose  bush  was  all 
that  remained  of  what  was  a  flower  garden  which 
had  been  the  pride  and  care  of  some  woman’s  heart 
and  hands.  The  Lares  and  Penates  of  these  domestic 
shrines  had  been  violated  and  profaned ;  homes  had 
been  destroyed  and  their  inmates  whether  comprising 
feeble  old  age,  or  helpless  infancy  had  fled  to  find 
some  kind  of  shelter  elsewhere.  No  one  with  a  human 
heart  could  survey  the  evidence  of  such  frequent 
human  tragedies  without  being  saddened  and  moved 
with  pity.  Suffering  and  adversity  were  inevitable 
to  these  people;  yet  such  things  may  turn  to  bless¬ 
ings.  These  deserted  homes  were,  after  all,  only  last 
year’s  birds’  nests  and  kindly  nature  would  in  a  short 
time  obliterate  every  scar  on  the  landscape  and 
nothing  would  be  left  to  indicate  that  a  home  had 
ever  stood  upon  the  spot.  Best  of  all  there  was  no 
trace  of  sorrow  in  the  physical  destruction,  and  the 


Some  Practical  Suggestions  135 

mind  and  soul  rise  above  things  purely  material. 
The  desolation  and  loss  by  fire  is  as  nothing  com¬ 
pared  with  the  ruin  of  blasted  human  lives.  The 
horrors  of  war  are  trifling  compared  to  the  wreck 
of  lives  caused  by  selfishness  and  sin,  though  no  out¬ 
ward  scars  be  apparent.  A  home  desolated  by 
divorce  is  a  real  tragedy  for  there  is  always  the 
background  of  disgrace,  wrongdoing  and  sin,  and  in 
addition  there  may  be  gross  vice  and  not  infre¬ 
quently  crime.  The  losses  of  war  do  not  stain  the 
soul;  they  may  be  repaired,  or  if  not,  borne  with 
dignity  and  self-respect.  Kindly  nature  with  its 
winds  and  rains  may  heal  the  scars  of  the  land¬ 
scape  in  a  very  few  years,  but  blasted  lives  of  hus¬ 
bands,  wives  and  children  are  the  hurts  of  the  soul 
that  are  never  effaced ;  and  that  remain  for  sorrow 
to  brood  over  as  long  as  life  lasts. 

The  physical  and  material  injuries  that  war  may 
entail  are  in  every  way  to  be  preferred  to  those  of 
which  divorce  is  but  the  outward  name;  a  name  that 
covers  up  a  fraud  and  a  lie  so  far  as  Christianity  is 
concerned ;  a  name  that  stands  as  a  whited  sepulchre, 
a  charnel  house  full  of  dead  men’s  bones  and  all 
uncleanness. 


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